Eternity in a Pickle Jar
by Desdemona Kakalose
Summary: They say that everyone gets a second chance, they say that everyone dies. But what they don't say is whether you still get that second chance after death. It would be nice to think so, wouldn't it? This is the Less-Than-Divine Comedy. Jimmy/Edgar.
1. Accept our Condolences

March 1997

The local headlines read:

LATEST CORPSE DISCOVERED IN LOCAL LIBRARY

Sunday night, an unidentified body was recovered in the Religion section of the Leonard Nimsy Public Library. The body was shredded to piecemeal some hours earlier and reassembled apparently on the spot, lying in crucifixion position with glasses placed carefully beside him. Johnny, as our police have taken to calling the elusive mass murderer, seems to have taken special care with this victim. The remains were scooped up and deposited in the morgue, awaiting contact from friends or family. When none were forthcoming, the police issued this description: 5'11, male, brown hair and dark skin, goatee, dressed in slacks and a green t-shirt. As of now, still there have been no claims. On Monday, blood writing was discovered beside the scene of the discovery, fingerpainted on the spines of nearby books. The script reads: _Edgar Christ_. The meaning is unknown at this time.

We are left only to guess who this poor bastard was, and why Johnny seems to have been so interested in him. Police officials are quoted as saying: "God have mercy on him, the unlucky shmuck."

This reporter cannot help but agree.

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

_I will seek my soul mate,  
through death and into life again._

* * *

Edgar was bored.

It was the single unequivocal fact of his afterlife, and it irked him to no end. Here was, supposed to be blissing away his eternity safely situated in Heaven like a proper vindicated Christian, but all he could think about was getting up and taking care of that litter out by the entrance once and for all. Oh, the _litter_. He couldn't believe he the only one with this problem.

Day one—or was it hour one? Or year one? Who even knew?—he had been brimming with something between serenity and unbridled glee. Finally, all those years of racking up positive karma, watching his words, going out of his way to assist people back on Earth paid off. Not that he wouldn't have done it anyway—it was just nice to get a reward after going unappreciated for so long.

Who cared if he was actually dead at this point? This was amazing! He'd get to meet all the bigwigs on the theological circuit, talk to Michael first hand, finally look into those mistranslation issues in the bible, and oh, hadn't he always thought the Classical Jesus was really quite handso—WHOA, so not going there.

(Less control, now. Thoughts on a looser leash.)

But by day, or hour, or year, or f-ing _eternity_ two, the man was shifting uneasily in his fold-out chair. Where were the angels? What was with those freaky-ass flying bunnies? Nothing was _happening_.

And that was when he remembered exactly why he'd never much cared for spas and massages and such when he was alive. Yes, he'd gone to a spa. Edgar was completely secure in his masculinity, thank you. The problem with the whole situation had been that he wasn't content with 'relaxing'.

He had to _do_ something.

So by Eternity three, his fingers were itching for a pencil, with which he might lay out the multitude of designs rushing through his head, because boredom truly was the best inspiration and he was dying to do something—anything at all.

Hah. "Dying". He cracked himself up.

And then a thought dawned on him, like the 'Light of God' shining down on some poor gullible sap through the secret window in the upstairs of his old church. It occurred to Edgar that…

No one was watching him.

Even those disturbing winged rabbits had zoomed off to harass some poor unsuspecting newcomer… leaving him alone. Totally alone. No one watching, no one to see if he happened to stand up. So… He stood. Success!

And it wasn't like anyone had said he couldn't stand up or walk off. Maybe he could see about that litter after all.

Edgar flicked his eyes around the compound, nervously awaiting some wrench in the works. His fellow dead were blissing away in their cheap chairs, totally unaware of his little sin. How come he wasn't blissing? Did he forget to drink the special punch at the administration desk or something?

(Man at the front never mentioned this possibility.)

Nothing seemed to be happening, so he took a few slinking steps towards the chain link fence. Still nothing.

With growing confidence, the dead man edged off to the border of the… where the heck were they anyways? Somewhere on the metaphysical plane, he supposed, considering he was now sans one corporeal body and still interacting with the apparent world. He always _had_ wondered where Heaven was. He'd never expected it to be so… lifelike.

Edgar vaulted the fence, sticking the landing and bowing graciously to his imaginary audience. Being deceased must help a body's coordination, because he'd never been so graceful in his entire life. As soon as he had assured himself that he was indeed alone, he strolled off at a jaunty pace, eyeing a shape over the hill a ways away.

Well that was weird. It looked like… a boulder on top of a chair. No, on second thought, as it drew closer, he began to suspect that the giant blob was alive. In fact, it was wearing a shirt that said…

"God?"

"Shhh, you'll wake him!" ordered the strange, spindly creature peering out from under the chair. It looked like it was a part of the chair, actually. And Edgar thought _his_ life had been crap.

"Is that really _God_?" the dearly departed whispered dubiously. He'd never been much for the foaming-mouth literal Christianity some people at his church favored, but this was a bit more than unorthodox.

"Ah, DUH," the cone-headed creature snorted. "He only invented the universe. I would know. He made me WAY back at the beginning, because he was too lazy to float on his fat ass for another Chronosecond."

"Really_._" Edgar was disappointed. The bit of him that had always marveled at the Works of God crumpled up in his chest, leaving a little hollow spot. But, you couldn't argue with hard proof. "Okay then, as disappointing as _that_ is, the universe _is_ pretty cool. How'd he make it?"

"Dunno," answered the spidery thing in his high, weirdly accented voice. It was like something from… The Labyrinth. Yeah. Edgar had seen that movie back in the eighties because he'd been such a big fan of David Bowie. Not a bad movie; he'd liked the moral well enough.

"Well you were _there_, weren't you? You should know how it happened." Edgar raised an eyebrow.

"Are you kidding? I was still trying to figure out how this chair stays upright without squashing me! It was a bit more important than paying attention to the fat-ass."

"Oh. That… sucks."

"Tell me about it." the little being flailed in a pathetic sort of way. "And you know the only reason he created the physical universe at _all_ was that he wanted a taco. And guess what? He had to wait for you guys to evolve before he could get one. I think I preferred him back then, when all he did was sleep."

"Well," the human pointed out diplomatically, "He _is_ sleeping now."

"Right. And you can see why I don't want you to wake him. By the by, what are you doing out of your pen, little Earth-man?"

Edgar frowned, debating what to tell his new friend. "I got bored. Went for a walk."

"You're one of those, are you?" The spindly thing chuckled.

One of those stupid flying rodents sailed past their heads.

"What do you mean 'those'?" the dead man asked, flopping onto the dirt. There was a lot more dirt in heaven than he had anticipated.

"The nice ones," elaborated the creature, "You know, people who get into heaven because they won't fit in Hell. It's not a very classy system."

"Isn't there a purgatory or something for that?" Edgar asked, unnerved. Nobody wants to be the leftover… and he'd had enough of that in life. It was bad enough living the last ten or so years as 'that guy with the goatee', or worse—'that guy we can shove all the paperwork onto'.

"No, all that's a bunch of dogmatic baloney. There're only two places, far as I can tell. Hell is for stupid, rude, cruel people. They create their own Hell, you know. Heaven is for pious people. Y'know, the ones who sacrifice and martyr and do what they're told."

"But that's only two kinds of people. There can't be only two kinds of people!"

"No. But can you tell _them_ that? Noooo. They don't listen to anything. So the third class spirits get shipped to whatever's left… I really don't know how it works." The chair-animal rolled its bug-eyes.

The human looked up at the sky, wondering idly why it wasn't bluer in heaven. If anything, it was pretty gray and those far away clouds were rather _dingy_. He'd been expecting… oh, a sparkling azure expanse, dotted with pristine alabaster clouds. Not smog-city Illinois.

"So I'm a leftover. Great. I guess this is one of those 'nice guys finish last' moments." Edgar sighed.

"Kinda. But don't get depressed, Mundane. The good news is, you're free to explore the afterlife for eternity. Someone will stop you if you're breaking rules, so don't worry about it." The creature lifted one of its legs, teetering dangerously for a moments, and pointed. "You can go most places without trouble, so if you want to take a look at Hell… you know, make yourself feel better…" It gestured at a random hill.

"Go that way?" he asked, contemplating the options. On the one hand, it was a disillusioning experience to realize you were in fact so in significant that the universe didn't even have a proper place for you. On the other hand, exploring did sound fun, and…

"Hey," the dead man started, "Will I find more people like me?"

"Like you? Um… maybe? Probably not. Smart people are really rare, and most of them are total jerks. _Nice_ smart people are practically impossible." The alien-looking creature made a face only slightly weirder that its usual creepiness. "And most people from the last century are back in the circuit. But you can still try."

"Okay. Thanks, you've been a big help. By the way, my name is Edgar. Edgar _Vargas_." He stuck out a hand, forgetting that the helpful creature was also part chair.

"Muffin. Pleased to meet you." Muffin tried to lift a conical foot for a proper handshake, but the snoring dead weight of a Deity on its back titled dangerously to the left and it sadly gave up. "Oh well."

With a wave, Edgar strolled off, aiming in the general direction that the creature had pointed to. Nothing seemed to change, though he walked for a good while—it was like being in a bad TV show, where the cheapo sets kept running in cycles for thirty minutes.

He wasn't getting anywhere.

Just when he'd decided to head back, try the other way (maybe ask Muffin exactly what he'd meant, pointing off in a useless direction), when the ground gave way under him and he slid down a practically vertical slope, _down_ with no end in sight. In fact…

The ground he was currently sliding down at who-knows-how-many miles per hour wasn't actually dirt, as he'd first thought. It was asphalt, black with a yellow line off a few feet away. Or maybe it was a bunch of yellow dots, and he was moving too fast to see them individually.

He'd slipped onto his back now, and he glanced back up at the top of the shaft. Except that there was no top. Above him was mile on mile of stretching darkness, exactly the same as below, stretching, perhaps, to infinity?

A thought occurred to him, as he zoomed down the spread of nearly featureless highway. There was nothing but the road at his back, no top, and no bottom ...What if the ground was not _below_ him, as he 'fell', but _behind_ him?

And with that, the equilibrium tilted, and suddenly he knew he was flat on the floor, being dragged along this cavernous tunnel by some inexplicable magnetism. Talk about your paradigm shift.

No more than a few seconds, or was it a few years? After he discovered his error, a sickly reddish glow suffused the pavement ahead, the lurid light spreading to the entire passage as it sped by.

Red? Down? Road?

Oh no. That was too much.

As the pull on Edgar's body lessened, and something vaguely shaped like a skyline began to fade into view within the vermilion light, he reach a groaning conclusion.

He was on the Highway to Hell.

_Fantastic._

Somewhere behind (and ahead) of the irritated spirit, a great eye winked open from a feint of sleep and peered into the corners of Reality—it sought a bright line of events, a golden thread spinning through the most unlikely twists of space and time. It looked into the Something that was Edgar Vargas, and a smile broke out between the clouds above (and below) his tiny form.

If things _can_ begin, then this was now the beginning.

A ball rolled into motion.

TBC


	2. A Breif History in Hell

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

_"And the Lord said, 'Get the fuck out', _

_And the Adversary, Lucifer, Serpent in the Garden, Faith Crusher, Destroyer of Worlds said, 'Fine. _Be_ that way'."_

* * *

Edgar tumbled over the edge of the precipice and into the lurid city, into the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, the was nothing in the way of _ground_ on this side of the passageway, so he tumbled right on through the air and landed on unforgiving pavement. You would think that with the ground being asphalt, this could be an incredibly dangerous and potentially fatal event—at least that's what Edgar thought. But surprisingly, it just hurt like a bitch because of course, Edgar was already dead.

"Holy Judas fucking Christ!" he wheezed, stunned. "I am _definitely _not going back up that way."

"Even if you wanted too, you couldn't," a droll voice informed him.

Forgetting his possibly exploded spine, the dead man leapt to his feet and twisted to face whoever had witnessed his embarrassing fall. And there, in all his swirling glory was…

"Satan?" gasped Edgar, taking in the supernatural figure's twisted ram horns and skeletal face. Holy mother of God, the devil was _tall_!

"You know, that's not really my name. Satan was a snake, and not nearly as handsome as I," he corrected his guest, partly annoyed and partly amused. "I would prefer you to address me as Meestyerr A yavol—ah no, on second thought 'Señor Diablo' will do just fine."

"Right," nodded Edgar, who incidentally had never really believed in the Devil by _any_ name before. "Ah, Señor, what brings you… here?"

"Oh, I was in the neighborhood—or rather, in the house." Señor Diablo grinned at his own joke, though Edgar hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about. "And you're a bit of an event yourself, Mr. Vargas. Rather a point of interest for me, in fact."

Although he was still tense, the deceased was curious enough to ask, "Interest? I think you may have the wrong man."

Lucifer smiled at him in a way that said _I pity you because your pitiful human mind refuses to comprehend what is obvious to my Supreme self._ "My good man," he said instead, "I am never wrong. You will find that... certain things become clearer as you go. Or perhaps not. After all, I do love a good struggle in the dark- something that we agree upon actually."

"We?"

"Not you and I," Señor Diablo chuckled meanly, "but rather I and another interested party."

Edgar decided then and there that he didn't like the Devil at all—reminded him too much of his old boss, and the preacher he'd had as a kid. He wanted nothing to do with someone who could pack that much arrogance into one sentence. What was worse, apparently he was serving as some kind of entertainment for the Ruler of Hell, like a... a soap opera or something? Although he couldn't imagine himself being too entertaining—pitiful, perhaps, when... no. Nothing about that. Besides, the most television-worthy moment of his life had in fact been his _last_ moment of life.

And, with that thought in mind, he found himself missing the man who had killed him. A little.

True, he'd spent only minutes with… Johnny, wasn't it? Yes, 'Nny' for short. Only minutes, but those minutes had been fascinating, and it was pleasant (despite the unpleasant situation) to be looked at as an Admirable Person, albeit an expendable one. Johnny had been so earnest in his manor, so clearly intelligent despite displaying every classical sign of paranoid schizophrenia and a sociopathic mind. Edgar could tell from the get-go that Nny felt he was doing the right thing, you could see it on his face. The body language said it all, and God almighty but you could tell, even if he'd been sort of an emaciated insomniac—NONONO. _BAD_ Edgar.

Needless to say, he hadn't thought any of the last bit during the time spent trying to avoid death. Sometimes he really struggled with that train of thought, but there was something about being in mortal danger and faced with the enigma of a century that rendered those questions… irrelevant, at best. Also, there had been the pain...

"Mr. Vargas?" Señor Diablo cut in, brow raised. "Are you ignoring me?"

"No!" Edgar snapped back into reality, properly abashed. And also suddenly nervous. "I was… thinking about my death." That was reasonable, wasn't it?

"Ah, the fatal encounter with Mr. C," the Being noted, with a look that clearly said, _I know what you were really thinking, you little queero_.

To his credit, Edgar's poker face remained intact.

"You know, it seems like this form just doesn't scare people anymore…" the Devil muttered, put out. "Perhaps a mime?"

Edgar seriously hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Still yes, Johnny is another interesting abnormality. Hideously insane, but I'm sure you noticed he's surprisingly lucid. Not to mention the monster in his walls…" The Adversary trailed off smugly, in a tone that sang with _I know something you don't know..._

"What? You mean the… the _Thing_ he needed my blood for actually _exists?_ Sweet Jesus!"

"He's really not very sweet," Senior Diablo mused. "And yes, my good man, the Moose is very real."

The Devil made a 'shall we walk' gesture, quite difficult for someone with no visible arms, and headed off toward the city. Edgar rushed after him.

"The Moose? That definitely inspires fear in the hearts of men." He paused to consider. "On the other hand, it's no weirder than Muffin, I guess."

"You spoke with Muffin?" asked the scourge of the underworld, sounding a touch surprised. "Hmm… well, you've clearly explored Heaven to your satisfaction; I suppose it's only fair that I offer you the same hospitality."

He slowed as they entered a gate, looming cement walls on either side. An inscription over the entrance read:

_I am the way to the City of Woe, I am the way to the Forsaken People, and I am the way to Eternal Sorrow…_

"…'Only elements time could not wear were made before me, beyond time I stand. Abandon hope all ye who enter here'," read Edgar, taken aback. "Dante?"

"Oh, yes. A bit of a joke, that. Neat, huh?" Senior Diablo grinned, pleased to have a guest who could actually comprehend the word 'forsaken'. "The best sort of joke is the kind that's true, wouldn't you say? It's really rather complicated. You have to understand, Mr. Vargas, things were different in the beginning. I dare say Muffin doesn't know the whole story, though no one really does. Before Men and Mortal Things…"

The Hellish figure stopped outside a McDevil's, whose sign read 'We'll steal your SOUL!'

He had a strange look on his unearthly face, wistful, perhaps. "God was… awe-inspiring, in those days. I would not tell you otherwise. Oh, I did believe in him, I had such faith. Powerful, brilliant, all of creation at his fingertips. I..." The Devil glanced down at the dead man, whose expression was carefully neutral.

"Ah, well I do believe I'm rambling. Anyways, this is your stop. Go in and get a visitor's pass."

Edgar stared hard at the building, as if it would yield the secrets of the underworld if he just put enough pressure on it. It occurred to him as he focused on the architecture (bleak and uninteresting) that this place wasn't too different from the city he used to live in, except for its much stronger sinister aura. And he didn't see any trees. He turned to ask about that… but Senior Diablo was nowhere in sight. The Dearly Departed shrugged slightly to an invisible audience; the owner of Hell had a right to disappear spookily if he wanted to.

Five minutes of customer service literally from Hell, and Edgar sagged out of the unnecessarily large building with a little blue card and a guest pass around his neck. Why he even _needed_ a guest pass was beyond him, unless it was to keep pitchfork-carrying demons away from his squishy bits.

Unlikely.

In fact, as Edgar strolled down the dirty streets of that red-tinted city, he found that it really _was_ no different from Earth; save the way these eerily monolithic buildings seemed to lean inwards and loom over him. Actually, the structures themselves were odd too, in an abstract way. Like something straight out of Gotham City—dark and weirdly pointed.

An odd, jumpy pace developed in his walk, tensing as he passed signs proclaiming 'Dead NUDE girls!' and 'Smoke! You're already dead!'

Strike what he'd said, this place was way worse than home. After his encounter with the shrieking lady at the help desk, he was dreading confrontation with the citizens of Hell. The few he'd spotted so far had stared at him with narrowed eyes and slunk into the shadows before he could address them.

There was still the matter of 'others like him', though. The chair creature had said something about a circuit… reincarnation? Possible. Either way it sounded like he wasn't going to find anyone in quite the same pickle as himself. On the other hand, in a system set up for only two kinds of people, there were bound to be other misfits floating around here. Someone searching for another like himself or herself… and maybe…

_What was that_?

Edgar looked up into the reddish smoggy sky where the sun should be. Was that... was that a _giant floating eyeball_?

What in the name of Dolly Parton was _that_ doing up there? And more importantly, why was it staring at _him_?

Hesitantly, the dead man pointed to himself and mouthed 'me?', which made him feel utterly ridiculous a moment later, but did its job.

The eye jiggled in a 'yes, you' gesture, and looked meaningfully at a nearby roof top. Okay, _that _was not normal. So, feeling like he'd recently escaped from the crazy house for boys, he dutifully trudged across the street and into some sort of boutique. At the counter sat a blond woman with a nose ring and a terrifying scowl, reading a trashy magazine. Under the sudden fearsome power of her scrutiny, the goatee-ed man managed to forget about the lonely eyeball hovering outside.

It is important to note that in life, Edgar had been entirely a mild mannered man. The superman lurking under his Clark Kent managed to burst to the surface only on rare occasion—one of those rare occasions being the moments before his untimely passing. Death had left him feeling liberated and almost chatty up until now, but the flesh-peeling glare on that woman's face was enough to jolt him back into high school meekness.

"Um… do you… can I use your roof?" _Brilliant, Edgar_.

But the woman was not to be deterred by something as trivial as other people's needs. "Dude, what the hell is with your _nose?"_ she snorted, actually setting down her magazine.

"I… don't… know?" Edgar managed, feeling vaguely like a deer must feel under the glare of headlights with a two ton truck rolling up behind them.

"I mean, it's like a fuckin' _mountain_!" the woman shrieked, giddy with sheer spitefulness, "And oh my god, your shirt totally clashes with your shoes. Who the hell taught you how to dress?"

_It does _not_ clash_. The dead man clenched his fists so tight the skin turned chalky. "Can I use your _roof?_ Please," he hissed through clenched teeth. _Women_.

"Sure, whatever. You better hope the Eye doesn't spot your circus get-up though." She pointed lazily a door, perfectly pleased with her own bitchiness.

"The eye?" Edgar stopped with a hand on the doorframe. Now he remembered what exactly he was doing here.

"Oh, you're a noob, huh?" she sneered, basking in the glow of her own vocabulary. "Yeah, the Eye. 'S always watching us down here. Well, mostly me, but it might see you too, since you're nearby."

"Right," Edgar frowned slightly, wondering how long it would _actually_ take to figure out this whole afterlife business. "I'll just show myself up, then."

"Later, effete," the blond called after him, returning to her magazine.

The man slunk past a rack of near-see-through blouses with his head down, wishing fervently that someone with fewer morals than he would come along and stick a blunt object through her head. Maybe multiple blunt objects.

Also, he wondered what a… _lady_, like that was doing with a word like 'effete' in her vocabulary. As he climbed the seemingly endless staircase, he considered darkly that she probably didn't even know what it meant. Just that it was rude and sounded ungodly pretentious.

Definition: weak, worthless, feminine. Origin came from the Latin word for 'worn out from bearing children'. He'd taken part in a few brainbowl sessions during his time on Earth.

Edgar had one Very Bad Feeling that this was only the start of things. The first of many, as it were. God, what if everyone here was like her? What if... Oh, a door!

He shook his head and focused on why he was here in the first place.

Edgar wrapped a well-manicured hand (note to self: never let _anyone_ down here find out about that) around the doorknob and pushed. The hinges creaked like a gunshot, but the door swung open easily. Stumbling, the murdered man stepped out into the lurid city light.

"WHAAA!" he shrieked, tipping over backwards to land undignified on his butt.

"Ugh. It's always with the shrieking… Why do they always _do_ that?" a deep voice bemoaned.

Edgar did a double take. That pathetic voice with the mild English accent was coming from the looming, _massive eye _floating about two inches from his nose. How was that _possible_?

"A-are you talking?" the spirit stuttered, right hand clutching at his heart.

"Nooo, I'm dancing the Macarena—Of course I'm talking! Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?" It floated a little higher.

"Uh, well, I imagine most human beings aren't really used to… talking eyeballs."

"Honestly… _Aren't_ you going to ask why I called you up here?"

"Oh. So… why did you call me up here?" Edgar asked, meanwhile making a point to ignore the grossness of the situation. He stopped himself from wondering, vaguely, if the eye was _gooey_.

"Because I wanted to meet you, of course. I'm so _tired_ of watching the idiots flaunt their newest fad. And they're always _looking_ at me…" the eye whined. "It's bloody disturbing!"

"I can imagine," Edgar attempted a sympathetic tone while teetering on the brink of full-scale laughter. Hilarity won out over grossness, once again. "So what _do_ you do, if not pass constant judgment on people's clothing?"

The eye blinked. "I don't really know. I _think_ Senior Diablo uses me to keep an eye on the masses. He won me from the oracle of Delphi in a poker game. I'm an All Seeing Eye, you know."

"No, I didn't. What's that?" _Oracle_? Wasn't that _Greek_ Mythology? That raised a whole new set of unanswerable questions.

"It means I'm… kind of like a TV. But I think it works on both ends, too. Haven't tried it."

"So… hypothetically… I could use you to look back at Earth?"

"Hypothetically, yeah. Pretty nifty, huh?" if disembodied eyes could smile, it would have been beaming.

"Yeah, nifty. Um… Mr. Eyeball?"

"You can call me Al."

"Alright, Al. How would you feel about putting that theory to the test? I've got a couple places back on Earth I'd like to check in on."

And so began Edgar's Afterlife. In the next few months they spent literally uncountable hours working out the kinks in their experiment, with the dead man alternately wandering the streets of Hell and resting in Heaven. Little by little, the streets of the underworld became as familiar as the hallways he'd walked daily in life; little by little, the patterns of its inhabitants were mapped out just as clearly. And every so often, Edgar dropped back by to focus his borrowed vision on two locations: one dull looking high school full of angsty teenagers, and a broken down shack of a house in the same city. Number 777, home of one homicidal maniac, Number of the Moose.

That's the end of the beginning. It would be a waste of time to recount those days further, curious and formative though they were, for one very good reason.

By the time that all was said and done, Edgar would hardly be able to remember an afterlife before the Meeting.

TBC

Pedestrians! Amuse yourselves by returning to this chapter and seeking out the ultimate slash pairing of the universe for ten points, my phonetic Russian translation for fifteen, and the Paul Simon reference for twenty.


	3. Messy Beginings

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

_"Love can change a person the way that a parent can change a baby--awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess." -Lemony Snicket_

* * *

On screen, Edgar watched the sky fade to black, the stars sucked into an abyss and dissolved into nothingness. Although he had no proof, he suspected that it was not the _universe_ disappearing, but the _Earth_ dissolving out of the universe.

Nonetheless, darkness encroached across the planet, converging from all directions on a single location: one unassuming shack of a house, number 777 on an otherwise uninteresting street.

As the Black crept in over the lumpy, unkempt lawn, the vision x-rayed into the house, turning its focus on a dying man with a gunshot wound gaping in his forehead. The man dipped a finger in his own blood and began to write with trembling fingers, a lengthy sentiment filled with a burst of enlightenment, before curling into himself and awaiting death.

"Oh, Johnny," Edgar sighed, "I do believe it's time for a taste of your own medicine."

He watched in growing dismay as a supernatural drama unfolded before him, complete with escaping wall-monsters, escaping torture victims and escaping Pillsbury doughboys. The entire affair was so surreal, that if he hadn't been in one of the lower rooms himself (just before he died), he would have been convinced the entire thing was an elaborate hoax.

Finally, the last of reality faded out, sucking the Moose and its concluding victim into nothingness. There was a strange emptiness in his chest, he realized, as if the dissolution of his former home had dissolved something within himself as well. It was uncomfortable.

Edgar stepped back from the floating eye and tapped it once, grimacing at the jelly-like feel. He still hadn't gotten used to that, even after these past months.

"Al, I think that's enough," he said aloud, with a glance at the nearest rooftop.

"Huh? What?" the eye always had trouble drawing itself out of a trance. "Eh, right. So what just happened? I thought you told me that psychopath couldn't die?"

"No, I told you that _he_ told me that he couldn't die. And from what we've seen, I assumed it was true. It certainly made sense, in an outlandish sort of way. Did you see that suicide contraption he rigged up? It's just a theory, but what if he could only be killed by an unmanned weapon? Anyway, it's all history now. He'll be here pretty soon."

The eye spun its pupil in a gesture of annoyance. It had seen plenty enough to know that where Johnny C went, chaos was soon to follow.

"I know," agreed Edgar in a soothing tone, "But at least people will stop looking at you."

"There is that," Al hummed. "How about you? You going to meet him at the gate?"

The dead man laughed. "Oh, heavens no. Johnny probably doesn't even remember me, and I really don't want to introduce myself again after what happened _last_ time. That would be rather uncomfortable."

It was a shame, because Johnny had been such an interesting puzzle. But the deep-seated fear of awkwardness was stronger than curiosity, so no dice. Edgar would do without, and perhaps be annoyed with himself later.

And he hid.

It was more than a day (well, a light-to-dark-to-light transition, anyways) before he stepped back out of the shadows, a while before he felt the coast was truly clear. He'd spied snips of Johnny's adventure, enough to figure out what had happened. Sort of. He had left for good when Johnny came just a little too close to his hiding place for comfort, yelling at the Lint Woman.

As he'd spent what passed for night in Hell here in Hell, his recreated body decided that now was as good a time as any to catch up on some unessicary sleep in the dark corner of a movie theator. Now, awake again and the sky a bright white, and with a good night of sleep under his belt, Edgar strolled down the streets of Hell whistling happily. Ah, questions answered, a chance to see his murderer again, what else can you ask for in a day?

Tennis shoes scuffed along the glittering asphalt as the dead man contemplated the things he'd learned.

So Johnny had collected psychological waste, something like the slime trails left by humanity's less savory emotions. Hm.

Edgar wondered if it collected inside of him (that brought on the both hilarious and disturbing image of Johnny blown up like a balloon) or it passed through him into somewhere else. A holding cell? Senor Diablo had been annoyingly vague. Maybe it was connected to the Moose, somehow? It seemed an odd coincidence that the strange details would both show up at the same time.

The whole situation was out of his league--he had ought to file it away for future pondering and let things happen as they happen. Sadly, that sort of thing had never been his strong point.

The dead man strode down the street, turning theories over in his head like pancakes on a griddle. He was so absorbed in trying to change mental channels that the road in front of him was neglected.

"Watch it, fag!" screeched a woman with an absolutely terrible dye-job, clutching at her bags.

Great. That was the fifth person to call him a fag since he'd gotten to Hell. Who were these people, and why did they all seem to think he was gay?

"Ma'am, I am not a fag."

"Psh, of course you are. Only fags talk like that—my boyfriend told me so. And you're so skinny! HA!" the woman's laugh sounded like a dying wolverine.

Grimacing, Edgar looked down and noticed that he was indeed quite skinny. He'd always worn baggy clothes in life—something he'd been forced to grow out of while in Hell—so he supposed that might account for why people hadn't noticed before.

Actually, now that he thought about it, practically every man down here was some variation of obese, possibly a result of the dead not needing to eat and yet still eating.

"Oh_._ Yeah. I am. But how does that make me gay?" asked the murdered man, raising a brow.

"It… you… oh, go cry to your boyfriend, whiner!" she dashed off into an alley.

Edgar ground his teeth. Whatever. She'd be a hooker soon enough.

"At least," he muttered, "I haven't met anyone I used to know. On the other hand, I don't know many people to begin with." He'd always kept more or less to himself, and like he'd told Johnny... he didn't really have friends or family. Not anymore.

Edgar trailed off as a startling BANG resounded around the block ahead. Several incomprehensible shouts and a shreik of 'FUCKERS' followed, drawing closer and closer to the dead man. Quickly, he pulled himself into an alleyway and waited. The people of Hell could get irrational at the drop of a hat, and who knew? Maybe the poor guy they were chasing needed help.

Around the corner came a screaming whirl of spiky hair with a bag in hand, fleeing from an unseen mob, possibly with torches.

Just as the figure same level with Edgar's hiding place, the brown-haired man reached out and grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, yanking them both back into the darkness and out of sight. The mob's pounding feet rushed by their hiding place and faded down the road.

Edgar ran through a quick appraisal of the boy's—he'd probably been about collage age when he died—appearance, simply curious.

Huh. Baggy black pants tucked into buckled boots; striped shirt, spiky black hair, a spattering of acne and some freckles… fairly normal as far as teenagers went, he supposed, though there was something eerily familiar about him.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the teen demanded, unnecessarily smoothing his unruly hair. Edgar smiled at the classic sign of anxiety.

"Saving you from a mob, I suspect," Edgar answered quite seriously.

"I had it under control! They were right where I wanted them. I was gonna… do… something," the younger man ended lamely.

"I'm sure you were. Nonetheless, I felt I ought to give you a hand."

"I don't buy it. Nobody's nice down here. What's your game?" and he added as an afterthought: "Fuck you."

"I'm not really from around here," Edgar answered, drawing his guest tag out of his pocket with a minimum of difficulty. "Care to fill me in on why half of Hell was chasing you?"

The spiky-haired fugitive narrowed his eyes and seated himself on a conveniently placed cardboard box. He looked like he was weighing his options.

"I snatched some booze," he said, clearly expecting his audience to be impressed.

Instead, his audience raised an eyebrow. "Is that all?"

"No! …yes… Why do _you_ care?" the thief pointed an accusatory finger.

Edgar noticed something at that point, an irrelevant detail that blotted out everything else. His mind had a tendency to drift off into tangents at inopportune times, a curse he'd dealt with before in meetings and Sunday services. Now was such a time, he realized, as he noticed that his grudging companion wore _fishnet gloves_.

Now, the man had (especially as one who had taken grief for his nose and goatee over the years) always tried very hard not to profile people by their physical appearance, and certainly not make any character assumptions based on it. He'd known enough spirited Goths and depressed cheerleaders to realize the stupidity of relying on clothing to describe an individual. But the second he saw those gloves, his gay-dar went off like a smoke alarm in a middle school girls' bathroom.

And as much as he tried to shut it up, it went on and on, drawing a well of guilt from one half of his brain and curiosity from the other.

"Just curious," he murmured, still trying to shut off the warning bells. "Couldn't you have just bought it? People down here love to spend money."

"Well maybe I don't! Maybe I'm actually disgusted by these assholes, you ever think of that, Mr. Tourist? You ever think that maybe I don't belong here with these idiots? That I can actually see past the end of my nose?! I mean, GOD, these jerks are so self-centered and those stupid hang-ups that…"

The rest of the kid's monologue faded into a faint buzzing noise as Edgar realized who he looked like. It was Johnny! The dead boy looked like a copy of Nny spit out of a Xerox with no toner.

This was insane. Of all the people in Hell, he'd saved the one who not only--probably--knew his murderer, but also clearly emulated him.

Of course there was always the chance of a coincidence, but Edgar had never believed in those. He wondered if this admirer was like Johnny in terms of insanity too.

"--And that one chick, what is up with the LINT? She says she's self aware, but she can't even hold back a fucking insult! Did you ever think of _that_?" the thief demanded, cutting off Edgar's mental monologue.

"Yes, actually," he answered—he had in fact thought the same thing when he met the wench in question.

"Well, that's because you—" he stopped short. "Wait. You have?"

"Mhmm." Edgar was quite good at projecting a sort of serene passivity. It calmed... people. "It's nearly impossible to miss, unless you're a complete ignoramus. Which, as I'm sure you've noticed, most people are."

"Uh… yeah…" the kid was clearly thrown. It would seem that an intelligent audience was unusual, perhaps entirely new to him. "Oh… um… I'm Jimmy, but you seem okay, so you can call me M—"

Jimmy cut himself off with a look of badly concealed chagrin. Come to think of it, hadn't that been about the same way Johnny had introduced himself?

_"I'm Johnny, but seeing as we're sharing this intimate moment, you may call me Nny"_

"Huh. ...Well, I gotta go. Booze to drink and so on, you know." Jimmy's mood swung easily to a slightly mocking cheerfulness. As he stood, he gave Edgar a once over. Apparently, he saw something that amused him.

"Smell ya later, faggot!" the boy with the fishnet gloves called over his shoulder, dashing out of the alley.

Well, that was one more person to add to the ever-growing We-Think-Edgar-Is-Gay list. Joy unbounded. And Edgar was left stunned, finding only one thing to say, long after Jimmy had fled.

"My name's _Edgar_. Edgar _Vargas_." And then he snorted at the irony.

TBC

Comments? Critique?


	4. A Voice From the Taco There Came

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

_"And a voice from the Taco there came," he spake unto the crowds, and the Word of the Lord flowed through him as hotsauce through the meaty part of a mexican fastfood meal._

* * *

It was another day in Hell, no change there. The night before, Edgar slipped off into Heaven during a measure of Eternity typically refered to as 'night' in Hell, for something akin to sleep—but as spirits can't "sleep" in Heaven, he supposed that _meditate _was a better term.

In either case, instead of sticking around for that unpredictable period of darkness in Hell, the dead man had taken a stairway back to Heaven (yes, it did appear that these people had nothing better to do than rip off classic songs) and taken a well-deserved time-out. But the next day brought an incessant curiosity, and once again Edgar found himself in the Underworld, idly looking for something he couldn't name. He felt like he'd been searching all his life, so it felt natural to be searching through his afterlife too.

He strolled down the littered streets, which were ironically clearer than Heaven's, whistling a hymn from his old church. He might be among the damned, but hell if he wasn't going to enjoy after-life. It occurred to him, then, that maybe Hell was what you made it. Maybe it didn't matter so much _where_ you were as much as how you looked at it. The thought seemed to lift an invisible load off his shoulders, his back straightened, his steps were lighter, although he couldn't explain _why_.

So, with his new brightness wrapped around him like a favorite shirt, Edgar decided it was time for a good old fashioned taco. He really wanted one. The deceased man made his way to the front of the nearest Mexican restaurant and stopped outside the door. What was that noise?

The building was a gaudy affair, with a giant replica taco serving as its roof. And from somewhere inside the taco, Edgar could hear something… human? There was something bluish and oblong wobbling on the edge of the lettuce—

The bluish thing landed on Edgar's head.

"Judas fucker of CHRIST!" he screeched, clutching his head. God, that _smarted_. Was that a _wine bottle_ that hit him? What the fuck?

"Hah. Niiiice one," grinned a voice from above. Not 'above' as in heaven, no, it was a voice from the taco. Oh God no, he _really_ hoped it wasn't a talking taco demon.

What? Weirder things had happened.

"Who's that?" demanded Edgar, relieved to find his initial head pains lessening.

"_The Darkness,_" the person answered in a spooky voice. It was definitely a person.

The… what? Darkness? That voice was familiar. In fact, it sounded rather like…

"Jimmy? Is that ...you?" Amazing. It really is a small underworld after all.

There was a movement of shadows between two giant slices of tomato, and then a pale face spotted with acne peaked out. Was it the lighting, or did his face look a little clearer than the day before?

"Hey! Fairy-boy! What're you doin' here?" he pushed further out to get a better view.

"Do you know you're the sixth person to accuse me of being gay?" Edgar ground out, insult and injury not mixing well. "What is it with you guys? Is there something about being damned that just drives your gaydar out of control?"

"Whoa, You can't just group me in with those idiots!" The boy leant even further over the taco shell, looking for all the world like an indignant topping.

"You realize you'll fall out if you keep that up, right?" Edgar pointed out, rubbing at his head. Glass bottles were heavy.

"Fuck you!" the teen crowed. He pushed himself halfway into the air and waved. "See? One hand! Ha, I bet I can get two hand t—"

And that was when Jimmy fell.

With a jolt, Edgar jumped forward in an attempt to catch the boy—which, though valiant, failed miserably. Jimmy landed with a crack on the unforgiving concrete but seconds before the dead man could reach him. Edgar stopped cold at the sound of bone snapping, glancing at his own legs in sympathy. Hesitantly, he stepped forward and knelt by the injured thief.

"Jimmy? Are you okay?" he asked quietly, feeling panic rising in his chest.

"Unnn…" the spiky-haired teen groaned, turning his head with a nasty crack. "What kind of question is _that_? You heard that snappy sound? That's my _leg_."

Edgar sighed in relief. "Okay, sorry. What else could I say?"

"Hmph." Jimmy closed one eye and glared blearily with the other. "I'm not dead, if that's what you meant. I hope not; that'd be even stupider. On account of us being dead already."

"...Do you think you can walk?" the older man frowned, running the logistics in his head. Not likely, but seeing as these weren't exactly human bodies… still not likely. Dumb questions seemed to be his forte.

"Uh… yeah. Sure, I'll be fine. So just keep walkin', show's over. Anyways, the damned heal damned quickly." He giggled at his own joke.

Edgar raised a brow. "You won't be going anywhere soon, if I'm not mistaken. I _did_ hear that crack. It was your _leg,_" he mocked, arms crossed.

"Fuck you!" the younger shouted suddenly, slaming a fist into the pavement. Futilely, he attempted to pull himself up. "Your fucking good Samaritan routine doesn't fool me! What do you _want?"_

Gently, the murdered man pushed his companion back down and took his right hand. "I don't want anything," he answered quietly, when he was sure Jimmy's rage had subsided. "Except maybe to get you home in one piece. Where do you live?"

It occurred to him that he had no clue what Hell had in terms of housing. He went back to his fold-out chair in Heaven whenever he needed to rest, but he hadn't seen any chairs down here…

"Why should I tell you?" Jimmy seethed.

"Because you want to get out of the street. Unless you like the idea of staying on the sidewalk until kingdom come or you get run over by a bicyclist. Whichever comes first." He shrugged and slipped an unoccupied arm around the thief's torso. "Now seriously, where do you live?"

Jimmy flinched at the contact but made no move to stop him. Honestly, the concrete was about as pleasant to lie on as a bed of nails. Grudgingly, he pulled his wrist free and draped it over Edgar's shoulder, obstinately silent.

When Edgar had pulled them both to their feet, he finally answered, "That way" and pointed.

The older man fought down the embarrassment that was seeping through his mind, thanking God in all of his couch-potato glory for dark skin--He'd never blushed once in his life. He also focused very hard on not thinking about _why_ he was embarrassed.

Ten minutes of awkward walking brought them to a run down apartment complex. It seemed that everyone in the underworld lived here, because the complex literally went on for miles. Death appeared to truly be the great equalizer. The place was huge!

When Edgar voiced that observation, Jimmy rolled his eyes but grinned just a little, looking mollified.

It took another ten minutes to reach his building, by which time they were both panting for breath and the teen's leg was about to give out. They stumbled to the door, exuberantly thankful that his was a first floor room, and flung themselves inside. With Jimmy safely relayed to the destination, Edgar finaly relaxed. And collapsed on the floor.

That had been, he reflected, both more physical contact and more sustained exersize than he'd had in years, probably.

"Alright, I'm safe from the big bad sidewalk, you can go home now." The thief leaned back into his ratty plaid couch, glaring at his guest.

Edgar nearly jumped—Jimmy's voice could get really creepy, and something about it poked him right in the twilight zone. "Um… are you sure you'll be okay? I mean, you can't exactly go anywhere…" _that sounded retarded._

"I'm _fine_ for the love of fuck," Jimmy answered, exasperated. "And don't think that this nice-guy act is gonna get you into my pants."

"W-what?" Edgar was… stunned. "Who said anything about…." Couldn't even put a sentence together. "I mean… I'm not gay?"

Why did that sound like a question? It wasn't a question!

"Sure you are," Jimmy flipped a hand. "You came from the same city as me, right? Of course I'm right. Everybody in this part of Hell is from the same city, anyways. Well, I mean look at your clothes. Skinny Jeans? A shirt that tight? You have to be at least five years older than me, and you dress that way--"

"But I didn't even pick these out!"

In fact, a hassled store clerk had thrust a pile of clothing at him the week before, claiming that though normally you needed money to buy things, in this case it was a matter of civic duty to get Edgar out of his original clothing. Then, when Edgar was trying them on, said attendant absconded with his old clothes and allegedly burned them in the fires of Hell. Thusly, the dead man was left wearing a complementary ensemble by the insane.

Jimmy, of course, didn't know any of this, and carried on as if Edgar had never spoken.

"…And where we're from, nobody but the gayest of the gay would wear that getup down the street. Besides, nobody does anything unless there's something in it for them, Heaven or not."

"Yes they do!" insisted the older man, personally affronted. He'd always tried to help anyone he could afford to, simply because it was the right thing to do, not for any sort of reward. His conscience would never allow him to ignore someone in need.

"Man, if you really think so, you've gotta be the most naïve person I've ever… How old are you?" the thief demanded, adjusting his ratty pillow.

"Twenty-seven, if you must know," Edgar sighed and sat as well. "But I'm really not gay, and I really don't want anything from you."

Jimmy gave him a long-suffering glare. "Look, I've learned to recognize the signs. You want something. Everybody wants something."

For a long moment, Edgar was silent. What signs was he giving off? He didn't think there was anything he wanted from this kid—well, honestly he could use a toaster. But he didn't know if Jimmy even had a toaster.

One way to find out, he supposed.

"Do you have a toaster?" the murdered man asked, hoping that it would shut Jimmy up.

"…Um… Maybe?" the younger man looked thrown. "You want my toaster?"

Hee. Jimmy had a cute confused face. "No, I just want to borrow it. See, I found this box of poptarts on the street, and normally I'd just leave it, but they were cherry-mushroom and I thought to myself, 'I may never see that flavor ever again!' so I grabbed it." Edgar smiled happily. "The thing is, I don't have a toaster."

There was a long moment of silence, in which Jimmy stared at Edgar and Edgar looked critically at the ceiling. Finally, the teen blinked and simply muttered, "And all this time I thought_ I_ was the weird one…"

"I like poptarts," said Edgar, by way of explanation. "So… how about that toaster?"

"You can look for it, I guess. No skin off my teeth. I'm not gonna be getting up for a while," Jimmy admitted, tapping his leg propped up on the coffee table.

"Great! I won't mess with anything," the brunet called, quite serious. If this guy really had known Johnny, there was no telling what sort of horrible things he had stashed around. The thought of it sent creepy tingles all through his body.

He slipped around the wall and into the kitchen where—jackpot—there was indeed a toaster. Of course, he didn't have any poptarts with him…

"Hey Jimmy!" he called past the partition, "Can I come back tomorrow for your toaster?"

The thief glanced down at his leg then over to Edgar. "Um… yeah. Whatever. And bring some painkillers too."

TBC


	5. The Whole Universe is Laughing

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar  
**

_The Whole Universe is Laughing at You (You Just Gotta Learn to Laugh Back)_

* * *

It's morning in Hell- Edgar can feel it, even if there's no visible change in Heaven. It was a hunch, but it sent him dashing off towards the exit just as well.

"Good Morning!" Edgar stage-whispered, waving happily at the chair creature ahead. God was asleep as usual.

(Disappointment, still. Wonders if he judged too hastily.)

Muffin blinked and scuttled closer. "Morning is an Earthly construct, Edgar-man. You seem… happy."

"I am—I found a toaster for my poptarts." He held out the battered box. "And I met a really interesting guy yesterday at the Taco-Hell. I think he used to know the guy who killed me!"

"And… that's a good thing?"

"It's the next _best_ thing."

"You are a strange humanoid."

Edgar only grinned and started on his way, calling over his shoulder, "I'll see you later!"

He turned left and kept an eye on the ground. The highway to Hell was on his right, but you could never be entirely sure what would pop out of the ground around here. Like those _rabbits…_

Soon enough, the ground tilted downward and leveled off, revealing an escalator descending through the ground. He'd found the thing a while back, not long after he'd started visiting the underworld.

But damn, he did wish time wasn't so fluid. It would have been nice to say "a week ago" or "two months ago". This sort of thing really made a person wonder about space/time relativity, and all those things he'd never thought much about before dying.

Death could really change a person's perspective.

The dead man hopped the last few steps down, skidding to a halt at the turnstiles. The stupid thing always made him scan the guest pass, sometimes twice or three times. The underworld had really perfected an art of irritation.

Past the doorway, there was a hall, walls bearing posters in the vein of "Expect the worst" and "You really should have seen this coming". He supposed a lot of Hell's residents arrived through here; probably along the subway tracks… he'd have to ask Jimmy about that.

Ah yes, Jimmy. Strange kid, if you could call him a kid. The mood swings he's have to get used to, find some equilibrium between the easy-going and forbidding; Jimmy was lucid, but he radiated instability… He was, doubtlessly, a danger to anyone within a mile radius.

Edgar found his footsteps speeding up, and pretended to wonder why.

The street came into view, and Edgar walked out under the reddish glow of the city with the box of toaster pastries tucked under one arm. No sun here, but Al gave him a friendly blink from his spot in the sky. Heat prickled along the murdered man's shoulders, but that was nothing. He'd always wanted to live in Florida again.

Oh yes, death was good. He should have done that years ago.

A good walk later, Edgar knocked at the door of Jimmy's apartment. It popped open immediately, and a suspicious face peered out. "...Oh, hey Fairy-boy."

Edgar frowned. The whole accusing-Edgar-of-being-gay thing was really getting on his nerves.

"Hey Jimmy. I'm here for that toaster." He tapped the box of poptarts, feeling suddenly nervous. He'd say 'butterflies', but that was probably a bad idea considering all the _fairy_ references flying around.

"Hey, step into my parlor," Jimmy grinned, looking not entirely stable.

"…Said the spider to the fly," Edgar muttered.

"Well," his host shrugged, leaning against the doorframe, "it's not much of a parlor to begin with. Hellova lot better than my last place, but still…"

The older man wandered into the house and towards the kitchen. "You mean before you died?"

"Yeah, that. Ashes to ashes and all that spiritual shit."

Edgar popped the lid off his box. "Says the dead guy living in Hell surrounded by other deceased people, talking to a wayward man from Heaven."

"Y'don't look so heavenly to me," Jimmy snorted, flopping onto his couch. The springs creaked loud enough to be heard in the kitchen.

"You haven't seen me cook," Edgar replied, shooting a quick grin over the partition, and dropped his pastries into the toaster.

"What, you good?"

"The best," Edgar replied, swinging back into the living room. "Poptarts are not the limit of my culinary expertise, you know."

"Hah. And you say you aren't gay." Jimmy giggled at his guest's grimace. "But seriously, I can't cook worth shit. If you wanna come back some time and make dinner, I'd owe you big time. I haven't eaten since I died."

"You don't have to. In the afterlife, food's just a luxury. Like beer." Edgar was surprised, though. If you thought you still had to eat, and yet you didn't… "How long have you been dead?"

"Oh, just a couple days, I guess? No biggie. I've gone a lot longer before."

In life, Edgar had a bit of a reputation for sniffing out stories from a mile away. Right then, there was something tasty in the oven.

"What's your record?"

"A week solid," Jimmy said proudly. At Edgar's expression, he added, "But I did have booze."

Imagine going a week without food, then working up the energy to go out and fight for some. The kid was a survivor, for sure. Whatever killed him must have had some real _teeth_.

"Why would you need to go that long without food?" the brunet asked casually, scanning the room.

"I was on the road." Jimmy answered, "Me 'n my parents had this huge fucker of an argument, an' I left with nothing but my wallet and my suitcase."

"Impressive. Did you die of starvation?"

Ah! Edgar was proud of himself. Normal conversation, at least for the underworld. You had to take into account that small talk there shifted from the earthly "what do you do for a living?" to the ever popular "How did you die?". It told you a lot about a person, too.

"Not starvation, no." His host's mood darkened suddenly, and unnervingly, "It was a lot less fun than that."

The older man was about to ask what could be less fun than starving to death, when the toaster went off and shattered his resolve.

He dashed into the kitchen to retrieve his poptarts, thinking fast. Jimmy was interesting, and he was dying to know about this mysterious means of death. But here, his poptarts were done, and he needed a better excuse to return than, "I'd like to study you like a bug under a microscope, if you don't mind."

Think, Edgar, think. Quick scan of the room, and the answer smacked him in the face like a god-given epiphany. Man, this place needed a paint job! Home improvement shows were his favorites, and all the little details he'd picked up there came rushing back to him. Jimmy needed some crown molding, and some decent carpeting. And what in _Heaven's name_ was going on with those countertops?

Whoever planned Hell's apartments deserved a fate worse than living there.

That did it, he was so giving this place a remake. He'd talk Jimmy into it, somehow. There was no resisting his need to improve, especially if he was going to be coming here often in the future, which he hoped he would.

Edgar returned to the living room with poptarts and a proposition.

"Hey, Jimmy. I just noticed something. No offense, but your apartment is really… drab."

The younger man rolled his eyes. "So? I'm not planning on doing anything with it."

"Can I?"

"Can you what?"

"Can I fix up the place? I mean, if you really don't care, it shouldn't be a problem." Edgar clasped his hands and looked hopeful.

Jimmy looked him over, radiating suspicion and a bit of confusion. He snuck a glance at his leg and sighed. "Fine. But for the love of fuck, do not make it smell like paint in here."

In the end, Edgar had to make two trips. The first, he swung into the apartment with two cans of paint and no paintbrush. From the couch, Jimmy surveyed the situation.

"You," he snorted, "are a fucking ditz." But there was a grin struggling underneath that.

So the older man set off on part two of his epic journey, to secure paint brushes and some painkillers, while he was thinking about it. That leg of the venture went rather more smoothly.

All things accounted for, Edgar jumped into the painting. Silence prevailed for half an hour or so, awarkward at first, then settling into a natural hum of traffic and thoughts. Truth be told, Edgar was surprised that his host had no television—he just seemed like the type. What did he do for entertainment? Had he even been here long enough to worry about entertainment?

"Yo, Fairy-boy," the thief called from his bed of misery, "how many of these pills can I take?"

Edgar looked up, distracted and frowning at the unstoppable nickname. "Two at a time, four in a cycle. And I _really_ wish you wouldn't call me that."

"What, 'Fairyboy'? Uhuh. I guess I could call you 'fag' if you like that better."

Sigh. It wasn't worth it. "Never mind, Jimmy." _It just seems unfair that I call you by _your_ real name, but you never even asked me what mine is._

"But my real question," the thief continued, interest shifted, "is why you're painting my living room that ugly purple color."

And indeed, to the untrained eye, it _was_ a hideous shade of mauve—hinting at pink in places. However, Edgar was nothing if not a well-trained eye.

"It's not ugly, it's _fashionable_. Pinks and purples are in right now, and greens are on the rise. At least they were when I died. This particular shade is androgynous: not masculine, exactly, but not feminine either. It'll complement the white countertops, or maybe something in green granite, if you were interested in that style…"

Jimmy stared. Jimmy blinked. Jimmy looked at him like he'd grew a second, glowing orange head.

"I'm sorry," the younger man finally said, "I don't speak _fashionista_."

Laughing, Edgar rubbed at a spot of paint on his cheek. "Okay, so maybe I watch too much TLC. Is that a crime?"

"Yeah, uh, I think so. Now if you'll excuse me while I make a nine-one-one call…"

"Oh, like they'd listen to _you_?"

"An' what's that supposed to mean?" the younger man demanded, brow raised.

"Well," Edgar said, shrugging, "Jimmy, you _are_ one seriously suspicious character."

The thief regarded him with a strange expression. "...If I wasn't crippled, I'd kick your ass."

Edgar smiled—he liked this kid. It was difficult to keep in mind that his host could very easily be a psychopath just as dangerous as Johnny C. And just because Edgar was dead didn't mean he couldn't be hurt…

But you know, maybe he wasn't.

"So how did _you_ die?" Jimmy inquired lazily, staring out the small, open window in the right wall.

Oh, speaking of Johnny C. _Good lord_, if _that_ question wasn't a veritable minefield. Suppose Jimmy _was _like Johnny, enough to try and finish what he'd started? Or if he'd been an admirer of some kind, well… Jimmy was clearly not a logical man.

Perhaps striking a balance between truth and lie? Honesty _is_ the best policy.

"Me? Ripped to shreds," Edgar answered with a genuine grimace. He could still feel the way his skin had torn pore from pore… "Incredibly painful. Lots of blood."

Jimmy, for his part, looked rather impressed. "How the hell'd you end up in that situation?"

"Wrong place, wrong time," Edgar shrugged, dripping paint onto the carpet.

"I'm surprised a fairy like you could manage to get into that much trouble."

Again with the fairy thing? Oi vey. "I'm _not _a fairy."

"A fruit."

"No."

"A fag, then."

"I'm _not gay_, Jimmy."

"Queer?"

"I'm not gay!"

"Oh, so you just like men."

"Exac—NO!"

Jimmy tumbled off the couch, laughing till he ran out of air. His guest scowled and went back to painting, but now with more fervor. What a jerk. Asking stupid questions like that.

How are you supposed to deal with that sort of thing again? He'd never had problems with it before he died—okay, it happened a couple times in high school, but for the most part he'd only ever been 'that other guy'. Nobody was _interested_ enough to pick on him. It was like being… not exactly _invisible,_ but…

"You know," the black haired man finally managed, between gasping laughter, "y'make it way too easy. You gotta stand up for yourself, man. To jerks like me, you're a walkin' buffet table."

That threw Edgar. "Buffet?"

"Sure." Jimmy pulled himself back onto his couch. "You look like I could do just about _anything_ to you and get away with it. Y'look... _quiet_."

The sharp grin that spread across his mouth sent a shock through Edgar's system. Chills.

"…Do you make a habit of searching out assaultable persons like myself?"

Jimmy giggled. "Hey, now that you mention it…"

After a moment, somehow, Edgar found himself laughing too. Everything was suddenly funny, like the universe was one big joke, and he was the punch line. So he laughed. At the absurdity of life—and death—and how much the world had changed in so little time… at how much he was changing.

And wondered how much Jimmy was changing, too.

TBC


	6. One Slap Two Slap

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar  
**

_One Slap, Two Slap (Red Slap, Blue Slap) _

* * *

Confusing as the underworld tended to be, Edgar had noted a few consistant rules amid the rampant stupidity and chaos.

For instance, along the streets of Hell there lay an astounding array of boutiques and antiques that no seemed to go in or out of. _Ever_. On the other hand, the single car dealership was awash with the dead at all hours of the day, and the Aberzombie would pop if one more body tried to squeeze inside. All in all, it remained about the same as Earth had been.

Maybe because he didn't belong in the underworld, or maybe because he pitied those poor, lonely shops, Edgar found himself frequenting the many neglected establishments. After all, he was still on a mission. He still intended to find another soul like himself, and he knew that above all things, human beings—dead or no—wanted to be sounded by people like themselves. It was psychology 101. So if he only kept his eyes open, he would gravitate towards another displaced soul.

In theory.

On the corner of Styx Street and Acheron Road there was a rarity: a well-stocked bookseller which carried actual books, and not magazines.

Styx split the city roughly in two, with 'normal' people on one side and 'alternative' people on the other. To Edgar, it seemed more like a split between blithering idiots and arrogant know-it-alls, with a lovely mixture in the middle. The bookstore in question was at the edge of that glorious melting pot, making interaction with its employees about as fun as an unanesthetized root canal.

But the selection was excellent, and Edgar could never resist the lure of books. Thusly, he'd developed the perfect coping mechanism. As they say, when in Hell…

Edgar kicked open the door with one foot, glaring into the room with glasses lowered. He cried, "I demand Machiavelli!"

All but one of the store attendants scampered _immediately_ to locate the book, awed by his self-important shrieking. The other one stared at him in suspicion as his colleagues tripped over themselves in haste. New guy, definitely.

"What do you want Machiavelli for?" he demanded, waltzing up into Edgar's personal space, "It's old. And it's about _real_ people."

Edgar glowered over his glasses. "I'm writing a vampire novel about a hot, evil lord of the dead who takes over the world and kills off all the normal people. I need _The Prince_!"

"Oh!" -suddenly the attendant was all smiles. "Somebody get this man a book!"

Another of his instant sycophants hopped over and dragged him to the back of the room, where a sign hanging from the ceiling said, "Old, Boring Stuff".

"We never sell anything in this back section," he chattered, "so you can just take it. Wouldn't dream of getting in the way of that novel. Left back shelf."

Pulling his arm away, Edgar swaggered in between the cases, nose wrinkling at the cobwebs and gratuitous dust. Glancing back behind him, he noticed that all the workers were crowed at the entrance… staring at him.

"I'm a writer, and I'm ignoring you now," Edgar called out, tossing his rather large nose in the air.

They scattered, whispering amongst themselves.

The second they had all dispersed, their customer collapsed in silent giggles, struggling to breathe. God, it worked every time- especially around here where everyone was both gothic _and_ stupid. Edgar thanked God for his experiences with high school children. They were ideal for perfecting his skills in illogical logic.

Edgar selected two books from the collection, _The Prince_ and _The Canterbury Tales- _considered adding _The Divine Comedy,_ but dismissed it as too paradoxical. He'd had a copy of all three before he died, but it's true what they say: you can't take it with you. Getting here was starting from scratch, and it did tend to piss a lot of people off. Which was just another reason not to put stock in material things.

After working himself up to character, the dead man disentangled from the shop with promises to share the fictional book and mention them all in the story as amazing, beautiful back-up characters with multi-colored hair. He'd only gotten to the entrance of the next store when one of the staff members came bursting out of the bookshop behind him.

Blond hair, clear skin, healthy, basically a normal looking guy beyond the nail polish and earring. He didn't look like the vampire type—so what did he want?

"Hey, um, hey." He skidded to a stop in front of Edgar, wringing his hands with their black-painted nails. "Do... uh... You wanna go out with me sometime?"

Edgar's eyes went wide. "On a _date_?"

"Yeah. And, uh, maybe a little more?" the younger man hinted, attempting to look cool. The fidgeting took away from that, though.

Gobsmacked, Edgar could only stare.

"There's this club on the Seventh Circle and it's got awesome drinks," his admirer went on, "and some rooms in the back…"

"You want me to have sex with you," Edgar managed, nearly speechless.

"Heh, well yeah." The man leered, taking that for an agreement, "But we can go out first, you know. No need to fall over yourself for me, you'll—"

SMACK

Edgar gaped at his hand, which had—_completely _of its own accord—reached out and slapped the young man. Hard.

"Ugh, you bitch! What was that for?"

"I'm not some cheap whore, you asshole. Who said I want to have sex with you?"

Hot stuff looked like he wanted to say something nasty about that, but Edgar's hand was raised in a very threatening manner. So, like all smart men faced with a hit-up gone wrong, he turned and ran like a scared puppy.

Something occurred to Edgar at the last minute, but he pushed it away. God, that man hadn't been attractive at _all_.

-0-

"You _slapped _him?"

Edgar glared at Jimmy, hands on hips. "Well, what _else _was I supposed to do?"

"I dunno," the teen snorted, "but there had to be somethin' less girly."

The older man groaned. Of course, slapping is what _women_ do. He'd forgotten that. No wonder the jerk had called him a bitch. Next time he'd remember to punch- no, wait, next time he would remember not to asault people at all.

"Good to know you got a spine, though," Jimmy snickered, glancing over the top of his couch. "Guy like you has to fight back or people'll eat you alive."

Of course, Edgar had gone straight over to the thief's house after the whole ordeal. He wasn't sure he could wander the city just now, and that paint brush in Jimmy's living room must have been sending out telepathic invitations. Jimmy found the whole business utterly hilarious.

"I never had problems with this on Earth," Edgar muttered, returning to his paint. A guy could whine sometimes, right?

"Yeah, well, you didn't dress like _that_, then. Because, trust me, no one will be ignoring you in those clothes."

_That again._ Edgar silently cursed the vendor who had stuck him with the outfits into the tenth circle of Hell and back. He really needed to go shopping for something more respectable, but he was sort of afraid of department stores, particularly around here…

"No, I _didn't_ wear these clothes when I was alive," he griped aloud, "I wore blazers and button downs and… professional things. Not these feminine monstrosities."

Jimmy ducked back down behind the couch. "Well, they must suit you if you're getting hit on in the middle of the street."

"No," Edgar sighed, "It just means that people around here have poor taste."

"What? In clothes or in people?"

"Both."

Neither said anything. Way to insult yourself in front of company, Edgar. He went back to painting the wall, absorbed in berrating himself.

"...Why would you be a poor choice in people?"

Edgar looked up. He really didn't want to talk about that, not at all. Especially not in front of Jimmy. But it wasn't in his nature to ignore a question.

"Well," he replied, slowly, hoping that Jimmy might take mercy on him, "first of all because I'm not going to… _do_ things with a man. And... second of all, I tend to make the people around me unhappy. It's a curse."

The younger man climbed awkwardly over the back of his couch and came to sit by Edgar, looking interested. "A curse?"

Edgar rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes. A witch cast a spell on me when I was just a little boy, didn't I tell you that? It must have slipped my mind..."

Of course, Jimmy wasn't going to let it go at that. He should have known it would be too easy.

"No, like, seriously. What's up with that?"

"People just aren't happy around me," Edgar shrugged. "Bad things happen to them. I... have trouble keeping people around, I guess. My mother broke more bones in her lifetime than an extreme sportsman, you know. My first girlfriend had her dog run over a week after we got together, my best friend's dad was killed in the army, my prom date contracted mononucleosis, my favorite professor was almost killed by a bus, my student..."

Jimmy looked at him questioningly, and Edgar looked away. Not going there. He'd done a fine job of avoiding the subject since he arrived in the afterlife, and he wasn't about to break form now.

"Bad things happen. That's all. It's not a curse, it's just really terrible luck. It did make holding onto a relationship pretty difficult, though, as if getting one in the first place wasn't difficult enough."

"Dude," the younger man said, shaking his head, "are you _sure _you didn't commit suicide?"

Edgar flinched.

"'Cause, I mean," Jimmy went on, oblivious, "I knew a lot of people who took the get-out-of-life-free card for a lot less. I knew this one guy, we called him 'Fish', and he..."

The younger man went on, but Edgar didn't catch much of it. He was just glad for the comforting buzz of speech swirling around him. There were some things he just didn't want to say anything about, and suicide was one of them.

"...and I think I saw him in a club on the Seventh Circle last night, but I'm not sure because he hid in the bathroom. God, the music there is so poserish, it's all underground emo shit–-they're dead already! Why don't they just shut up about dying?"

"...What were you doing on the Seventh Circle in the first place?"

"Oh, I... er.." Now it was Jimmy who looked uncomfortable. "I was, uh, in the Second Ring–y'know they serve some killer drinks, and..."

"No–" Edgar _did _file away the club's name, though. "-I mean, how did you get down there? Your leg broke three days ago."

The younger man relaxed instantly, looking even a bit smug. "I _told _you the damned heal damned quick."

"Not that quickly!" Edgar yelped, "There's no way you could do that. Jimmy, you limped to the door when I got here! You couldn't possibly make it downtown in that shape."

If there was anyone who knew the layout of Hell better than Edgar by this point, it could only be the Devil himself. The murdered man spent eighty percent of his time wandering its streets, and no one as meticulous as he could travel a city by foot without mapping it out to some extent. Thus, Edgar knew full well that a walk to Seventh Circle from the apartments, by way of Cocytus avenue, would take a good forty minutes for a healthy person.

Jimmy was not healthy, in any sense of the word.

"I had a ride," the thief retorted, looking distinctly smug now, "and it wasn't so bad last night. I've danced on worse."

Who would give _this_ guy a ride was up for debate, but the idea that he had actually danced caught Edgar's attention. The older man had never been any good at it, too scared to try, but music called to him and he envied those who could move with it.

"_The Darkness _dances?" he questioned lightly. "Imagine what the forces of Evil would say to that."

"Hey," the younger protested, "you can't judge me by what I say when I'm drunk!"

"Oh no?"

Jimmy leant over, idly invading Edgar's personal space. "No, I'm really not responsible for my actions…"

"You aren't? I'm sure that goes over well with the law enforcement."

"Oh, I'm good at keeping quiet, and _no_ one brings it up… I could do just about anything…"

His guest became very aware of the space—or lack thereof—between them all of a sudden.

"Er… that's good to know," he managed, squirming back in hopes of finding some spare oxygen. Where did all the air disappear _off_ to? He reached a blind hand behind him to gain some stability, only to have it slide off the edge of the paint can and send him toppling backwards, arms flailing.

"OW!"

"_Motherf_—"

Edgar looked up. Jimmy looked down. There was a red spot on Jimmy's face.

"What the fuck, man?" Jimmy demanded- "You just _slapped _me."

(Uh.)

If there had ever been a time to crawl in a hole and disappear, Edgar reflected as he beat a hasty retreat, _now _was probably it.

TBC


	7. Foreshadowing

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar  
**

_Funny how you can know someone  
without really knowing them-  
sometimes, you just have to feel your way  
to the bottom, and crawl back up_

* * *

Boots fascinated Edgar. Cowboy boots, hobnailed boots, ugg boots, the strange buckled variety he'd affectionately dubbed 'Nny-boots'… they could tell you so much about the owner, like little leather personality tests.

Jimmy's boots were probably Edgar's favorite thing about him. Worn black, lace-up-and-buckle monstrosities with absolutely no subtlety or consideration for the common welfare. They sported a bit of a heel, and splotched stains of what Edgar suspected in moments of dramatic weakness to be blood darkened the faded leather. They had an air of Johnny-ness, but it always seemed strained somehow—as if they were never meant to mirror the madman, and only awkwardly managed to fit their new role.

Edgar himself wore sneakers, simple white and black with black laces, nothing ostentatious. As much as the dead man loved boots, he never felt comfortable wearing them.

He was mulling this over as he walked to Jimmy's apartment, whistling a bit off key as he went. He'd seen a lot of boots in his lifetime, and he'd almost always been able to tell if he'd like someone by their choice of footwear. Maybe it was a testament to his own subtle oddness that he preferred boots in particular over heels or sandals or trainers. After all, there really aren't _that_ many people who wear them.

That thought carried him to the gates of the complex and the big wooden sign that read "Asphodel Fields", and the small plastic sign that read, "_Why bother? It's not like you have any choice_."

Edgar often wondered if the Devil oversaw putting this place together personally. It certainly had that touch of bleak humor, with almost a wistful undertone that seemed to indicate things had once been different. Better. But when had that been? A thousand years ago? A million? A billion? Before the start of time itself?

Man, that was way too deep for today. All he was supposed to do was apologize for knocking Jimmy upside the head, and maybe get some interior designing in. Shallow, and pleasantly, perfectly so.

Edgar knocked on the door of apartment 10913225. If the numbers were any indication, Hell was a lot bigger than it looked.

"Edgar?" Jimmy shouted through the door- "That you?"

"How'd you know?" the older man called back, loud enough to be heard inside.

The door popped open and Jimmy smirked at him, leaning against it. "Who the hell else is gonna come over to my place in broad daylight?"

"How about not-so-broad?" Edgar retorted, grinning.

"Not at liberty to say. You coming in or what?"

Inside the room everything was just as he left it, including the now dry paintbrush lying on the sand-colored carpet. Edgar wrinkled his nose.

"You couldn't have picked that up before it stained?"

Jimmy gave him a deadpan look. "You smack me in the face an' run out without a word, an' then you expect me to clean up after you? Sorry dude, _so _not happening."

"Oh," Edgar muttered, "about that. I'm sorry for slapping you. It was an accident, I promise."

Jimmy grunted, falling onto the couch. "Comin' from anyone else, I'd call that total bullshit. But for you, I'll buy it."

For reasons he decided not to examine, that made Edgar very happy. He kneeled and yanked at the brush, wrestling it from the desperate grip of the carpet fibers with a final tug and landing on his back in a sprawl. Wow, maybe he _did_ need to work out...

"So what did you do for a living?" Jimmy asked randomly, peering over the back of the sofa.

Edgar raised a brow. "Where did that come from?"

"Well, you said 'student' yesterday, and it had me wondering."

Now, how did Jimmy get so good at picking out topics Edgar didn't want to talk about? There were only three subjects that were off limits, and this was one of them. It figured that that with all the millions of questions you could ask, the dead boy would pick one of the forbidden trio.

"I don't want to talk about it," Edgar answered, picking himself up and entering the kitchenette.

"Why not?" Jimmy asked after him.

"Just because. I'm sure there's something in your life you don't want to talk about." Edgar twisted the tap and focused his energy on thoroughly rinsing out the brush, scraping dried paint from the handle with his nails and generally going overboard with the soap.

"No, not really," the younger man man replied—actually, Edgar was never sure if his host was a boy or a man, and it tended to change with his mood.

"…Not even your love life?"

Edgar refocused on the brush, only to discover it was now spotlessly clean. Damn. He flipped it over to be sure, but there was nothing else to be done, so he re-entered the living room.

"Love?" Jimmy snorted, "Yeah right. 'Course, if you wanted to hear about my sexual escapades, I'd be happy to oblige."

Edgar's eyes went a bit wide. "No, no, I'm fine. Please don't."

Jimmy burst out in gales of laughter, sliding off the couch's back and out of sight. Edgar crossed his arms and scowled.

"Why is that so funny?" he demanded, leaning against the half-painted wall.

"It's just…" his host managed between giggles, "…you're so… you act like a catholic _school_ _girl_!"

"I went to a non-denominational church," Edgar groused, deigning not to dignify the 'girl' half with a response.

"Huh, sure. I'd put money on you being catholic."

"Raised," he conceded. "But how would you know anything about that?"

Jimmy's grin slipped a bit, though he quickly replaced it—maybe quick enough to hide from most people, but not Edgar Vargas.

"I have all the stereotypes covered," he answered, managing to sound condescending.

Edgar figured that was all he was going to get, so he turned back to the wall and got down to work. He had started on the one behind Jimmy's couch the first day, and now he was a bit more than half way done with the left one too; two to go, and then he could crack down on that crown molding. Honestly, who would have the nerve to build something in this style and then fail to properly accessorize it?

Though time was fluid to begin with in a world with varying days and nights, it seemed to pass even less coherently while Edgar was painting. Of course, he'd never been what you'd call 'artistic'–-not for lack of trying, just talent–-but the repetitive motion allowed his mind to wander, something he was gaining appreciation for lately. Life had certainly never given him time to sit and think, though he probably would have gone stir-crazy if it did.

"By the way, I like your boots," he called out, not bothering to turn from his work. A rustling sound told him that Jimmy popped up over the side of the sofa, probably giving him the squinty eye.

"What the hell, man?" Jimmy demanded. "Where did _that _come from?"

Edgar shrugged, re-dipping the paintbrush. "The misty ethers of my mind wafted thoughts like silver clouds, rolling through my nerves and to my mouth."

"...you are the weirdest fag I have _ever _met."

Grimacing: "Not a fag, Jimmy."

"Yeah sure, whatever," the teen dismissed, sinking back down from the sound of it. "But seriously. My boots?"

"Yes," Edgar answered. "They're very... you."

Jimmy broke out laughing, something that rather puzzled Edgar. It's not like he'd said anything weird– they _were _very Jimmy. A little Johnny too, but...

"I got them from a friend, you know," the black-haired boy mused, sounding more nonchalant than the context required. "We set up this satanic ritual back in 11th grade... these were my bribe for helping out. 'Course, I would have done it anyways–didn't know what a joke Hell was, back then."

"Death is an eye opening experience," Edgar agreed, diplomatically. "Did anything interesting happen afterwards?"

"Well," Jimmy paused. "Chuey snapped an' assaulted our fifth period teacher a couple months later. Poor bitch ended up in the ICU, I think. I didn't pay much attention."

"You didn't pay attention to your teacher being beaten up by your friend?" Edgar frowned, dropping the brush and turning around a full 180 to face his host. "I think you have priority issues."

The younger man leaned over the arm of the couch-–he was like a cat, the way he simply crawled over every inch of furniture—and glared at Edgar. "Chuy wasn't really a _friend_, per say," he admtitted. "More like an ally. I didn't really _have _friends."

Discrepant as their stories were, Edgar knew what _that _was like. After all, he'd spent his youth more or less invisible, until someone needed a lab partner to mooch off of, at least. But while he had turned out to be a relatively stable individual, Jimmy had ended up as... well... Jimmy.

_There go I, but for the grace of God_.

"An ally against what?" he pushed, curious as always.

"The school," Jimmy sighed, "Life, people, social norm, those stupid fucking cheerleaders with their stupid fucking boyfriends. Parents. Football players who gag you with a jock strap an' throw you in their locker–-which is not as erotic as it sounds."

"Personal experience?"

"Yeah. Life's just one big clusterfuck, and I got moshed as well as the worst of 'em." The teen looked bitter and sounded oddly regretful, brows knitted and tone dark. "Everyone of 'em was a lying piece of shallow shit. God, I wanted them all dead. But, y'know, everybody's the same, on the inside. Doesn't matter if it was the stupid blond who rejected me or some dumb broad on the west side street. They're all the same."

Edgar steepled his fingers, looking over them and up at the younger man. "How do you know?"

"Because they're _people_!" Jimmy burst out, "and there's no such thing as a good person, or a nice person, or a happy marriage, or a goddamn good Samaritan! Fuck, that Samaritan probably picked the poor Jew's pockets while he was lying on the road. There's no such thing as an innocent; they just haven't had a chanced to make fun of me yet. They're all the same!"

"Even you?"

"Of course!" the younger man spat, chipped black nails digging into the fabric of the couch. "I'm just out to make myself happy, an' I don't give a fuck what happens to anyone else on the way! But hell, at least I'm straight about it, unlike every other motherfucker in the whole fucking world! All of us, out to hurt as much as we've ever been hurt, kill and destroy until there's nothing left to _offend _us."

Edgar gave him a curious sort of look. "Even me?"

Jimmy hesitated there, for some reason, not quite meeting his guest's eye. "Don't try to go an' make this about you," he muttered.

"I'm not," Edgar assured him, unlinking his fingers. "I'm just curious, I guess. I mean, I don't _feel _like a weasel-hearted, greedy bastard. On the other hand, it's rather hard to be objective about that sort of thing."

Jimmy stared at him. He stared at Jimmy. It was clear that his young friend had no idea how to respond to that—whether because it was phrased politely, or because he had at one point referred to himself as a weasel.

"Well," Edgar said, standing and dusting paint chips from his rather tight pants, "I'll leave you to ponder that one, I suppose. Guess I'll see you tomorrow."

And with that, the murdered man exited the building.

TBC


	8. Making Limes out of Lemons

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar  
**

_when life gives you limes,  
make limade._

* * *

Of course, Edgar never came back tomorrow.

He couldn't bring himself to, somehow. The rational part of his brain finally kicked in, or something, and it was informing him that Jimmy was in Hell for a reason, that reason being that he was _dangerous_. Dangerous is bad. _Bad_, damnit. It's not about what you want, he told himself, it's about what's _best_. On the other hand, he couldn't say _why_ rationality decided to start talking just now, any more than he could say exactly _why_ exactly Jimmy was bad.

Although it probably had to do with that incredibly pessimistic rant and the resemblance to Johnny C.

...And after what could be called three days, he found himself missing Jimmy, of all things. Or, more like _craving_, the way a pregnant woman craves pickled herring for no apparent reason. If he were honest with himself—and boy, that would be a change—he would say he was lonely. Of course, he had Muffin and Al, and the bagel man, but those weren't really the sort of friends you hang out with, and god, had he been this lonely when he was alive?

The dead man quickly shut down all his resurfacing memories. He didn't want to deal with those right now, or ever.

Currently, he was sitting in the back of a movie theater, thanking the Devil for allowing this small spot of darkness in his realm. Edgar didn't come here for the movies—he preferred books, always had—he came for the darkness.

Hell came in two variations of lighting: dark red and light red. The daytime sky resembled the inside of a white bowl with red neon light running around its rim, and the night was all one shade of slightly purplish burgundy- it's worth noting that you could _never_ predict when night was about to fall. There was no real black anywhere. Even heaven was no escape, as it came in exactly one variant of cloudy blue.

There was no rain either, which he found himself missing painfully.

He had been in _such_ a good mood over the last month, especially in the last few days of knowing Jimmy, and now suddenly it was gone. It was probably because of their conversation two days ago, and definitely not because he was missing Jimmy. How could you miss someone you'd know for less than a week?

Of course, the feeling wasn't unfamiliar. He'd felt sort of this way before, in the weeks proceeding his murder actually. But then, _that_ made sense. This didn't.

Edgar flicked his eyes up at the screen, where some scantily clad heroine was making out with some mediocre looking man. This was why he liked books. He quickly looked away, eyes resting on his own annoying star-printed pants. How could you expect to be taken seriously in those things? One of these days, he was going to get even with that store clerk.

Once again, if honesty were to be called on, he'd say that it was nice to be noticed by _anyone_, even if it was only so he could be insulted. It made him feel less… alone. And while he hadn't minded feeling that way before, suddenly it was like being ripped to shreds all over again.

He sighed and stood, quietly leaving the theater. The sound track was horrible, and he hadn't payed anyway. No money, and as a resident of Heaven, God covered those kinds of expenses.

He wandered out into the street and kept going, for once paying no attention to where he was. All that he wanted was a quiet place to think things over, where he wouldn't be reminded of how alone he was. Where had that positive attitude disappeared off to?

(This was a mood deferred, perhaps.)

He caught sight of a dingy car repair shop on his left and headed towards it. No one in Hell repaired anything; they were too obsessed with buying new stuff to worry about the old. Surely he would be safe there.

The murdered man slipped in the door, struck with irrational anger when he saw that there were indeed _people_ inside. In fact, a greasy man in the corner was currently being restrained by two mechanics as they beat out the dents in what had apparently been his car. It was a bit hard to tell, though, since it was squashed up like a pug's face. There was somebody behind the car, too, and he looked oddly familiar. In fact he looked almost like… no, it couldn't be…

"Mr. Roberts?" he gasped, drawing the old man's attention.

"Huh? What?" The grey-haired man popped up above the car's hood. "Whozzat?"

"Mr…Roberts… It's me, Edgar Vargas," the goatee'd man answered, taking a hesitant step forward.

"Edgar?" the old man squinted, "What the Hell are you doing in Hell?"

The younger man widened his eyes, reaching for his guest pass. Of course, that would be confusing for him. "Oh, no, you see—"

"I mean," Roberts cut him off, "after all those flipping church _bake sales_, I thought…"

"Well, I'm not really-"

"HaHA!" the old man crowed, taking a turn for the decidedly rude, "Old righteous Edgar, down on the furnace level with the rest of the peons. I bet you were spittin' mad when you wound up _here_! Well, _Mr. Vargas_, what happened to all that BS about merciful God and eternal Rewards?"

"No, you misunderstand—"

"Oh, understand plenty, Vargas. Bah, I can't believe how many people actually bought those simpering little sermons of yours!" he laughed, slapping the crunched metal of the car. "_God loves _everyone_. Let's hold hands and sing about how lucky we are_!"

"Now see here!" Edgar started, bristling visibly.

"See what? You, damned for all eternity? Oh I see that just fine. This is really too perfect! Imagine how many poor students you sent on the fast track to Hell with your bullshit. I mean—"

He didn't get a chance to tell anyone what he meant, though, because at that moment Edgar grabbed him by the collar and yanked him over the twisted metal of the hood so that their faces were inches apart.

"Fuck you, _Harry_," he spat, shaking the older man like a doll. "I meant every single word I told those children, and no head-up-his-ass, _Scrooge_ of a principal is going to accuse _me_ of spewing bullshit!"

"Edgar!"

"No!" he shouted, no doubt frightening both his former boss and every other person in the workshop. "Don't you dare 'Edgar' me, you educationally fucked waistoid of an SAT cheating _bastard_. I put up with your shit for way too long—goddamnit, what a waste of a life. But let me tell you this for free: I will not put up with your shit after _death_ too!"

The younger man dropped his past principal and watched him roll off the car and onto the cold concrete. The older man looked up at him and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he felt the waves of barely contained fury radiating off the other.

"…Edgar…" Roberts finally managed, "…what _happened _to you?"

"You mean, why am I not a subservient punching bag afraid of his own shadow?"

"Er… yes."

"What happened? Mr. Roberts, _death_ happened. I wasted too many good years, time I will _never_ get back, on you and asses like you. I grew a spine, Mr. Roberts, and I _won't_ make the same mistakes again."

His conversation with Jimmy a few days ago popped back into his head, and it made him think, unsurprisingly, that perhaps his recent aquaintance had a hand in shaping his new backbone. Funny that he hadn't quite grasped the extent of all his changes until now.

"So," he finished, "I can only pray that _you_ learn something down here, Mr. Roberts. That, or you can rot for all eternity in this little niche of Hell you carved out for yourself. Enjoy forever, you bastard."

And then Edgar stormed out, leaving a thoroughly slack jawed man in his wake—which did make him feel a little better. He wandered down the streets, ignoring all the looks directed his way. He felt vengeful and generally pissed off, and utterly unlike himself, and his sneakers made a sound when they hit the concrete that was just too _big_ for their rubber soles.

A glance up told him that it was passing now into what was considered night; the sky darkening from the center out into a shade reminiscent of blood or spilt punch. That meant that all the clubs and bars would be opening just about now, and all the Goths would scuttle out from whatever rocks they hid under. A drink sounded good. Really, really good, which was weird because he hadn't had a drop since his murder... and something told him that drinking in this state was Not a Very Good Idea...

...Well, it's not like it could kill him.

A turn on this street, a switch down this alley, go left on that road, and wham, Seventh Circle Boulevard. Now, what was that club? Another number…

Second Ring! That's what Jimmy had said. It all sounded suspiciously Dante, but he was too strung out to analyze anything right now. The dead man scanned the signs along the street, shying away from the more lurid names and the neon lights. There! Four buildings down.

Edgar pulled his shirt down at the hem, suddenly very aware of how he must look. He forced it down, though.

_Goddamnit_, he scowled, _I don't have to change my clothes to impress these guys. They can think whatever the hell they want._

Shoulders squared, Edgar pushed through the door and into a room that bore more than a passing resemblance to a rave. A green spotlight swept over his face and knocked out his vision for a good moment, sending him spinning into the fringes of the mosh. Night vision slid back into place before he could get too terribly battered, and he escaped over to the bar safely.

The bar tender looked like a neutral sort, and he said nothing when Edgar requested what was probably a very fruity drink—literally and figuratively. He supposed he ought to be grateful for that, but the rage of earlier had yet to completely dissipate.

Beyond his seat, the dance floor looked like one massive writhing animal lit in violet and green and pink. As his eyes adjusted, Edgar started to pick out individual dancers to focus on, each of them wild and surreal and fiercely determined. The very strange part, to him, was that none of them looked happy- the ones he could see anyways. He knew that if _he_ could get out there and dance like that, he'd be that happiest man alive… dead.

He caught himself staring at one of the male dancers, one near the edge of the crowd and moving with the smoothness of liquid, a mere silhouette of pulsing motion. When he found his eyes trailing down the gyrating form, he pinged a mental rubber band with almost subconscious automacy. _No._ His eyes remained on the figure though, and he could feel his bitterness seeping away bit by bit.

Dance was really an amazing thing.

The spiky outline of the dancer's head shifted, and the dead man knew at once that he was being stared back at. Oh, that was embarrassing, especially since the figure seemed to be moving towards him. What to do?

Edgar ducked his head down and turned back to the bar, spotting the drink waiting at his elbow. Convenient. He took a sip; it really _was_ a fruity drink.

Someone slipped into the stool next to him—the dancer, no doubt—and drummed fingers into the glossy wood. Those fingers looked awfully familiar, black nails and slender fingers, almost sinister but not quite…

"So, if it isn't the fag," his new companion mused, with a smirk in his voice.

Oooh, could his luck be worse? He just pinged himself for ogling—"Jimmy! What are you…?"

He looked up at the boy, who cut him off. "...doing here? _Dancing_, duh."

"Yeah," Edgar winced. After all, it _was_ Jimmy who told him about this club. "I saw."

"Kick-ass, right?" The black-haired boy grinned—and it was a sharp, very _adult_ grin that had Edgar suddenly questioning the 'boy' classification. Jimmy leaned in close with his typical disrespect for personal space. "But really, what're _you_ doing here?"

The older man sighed, picking up his drink. "I don't know. I'm feeling really… off."

The grin slid off of Jimmy's face, leaving him unusually serious and almost… worried? Edgar couldn't imagine why. Drunk, dancing people should be happy.

"I'll say you're off," the younger man agreed. "Normally, you turn into a fidgety _mess_ when I do the sexy-molester routine. Now you're all… sigh-ey."

Edgar's back snapped from hunched of the bar to ramrod-straight in under a second. "I do _what_ now?"

"You know," Jimmy twirled a fishnet-clad hand, "the catholic-school-girl thing. Like you think I'm going to pin you down and _rape_ you."

Edgar's eyes kind of glazed over at that.

"Maybe I should be offended," the thief went on, apparently not noticing the switchboard exploding into flames in Edgar's head. "Since, y'know, I'm not enough to get you all hot and bothered tonight."

The switchboard melted into a molten puddle and the little man in the swivel chair went screaming for cover. All inside Edgar's head, of course.

Jimmy eyed his friend for a moment and then split into a grin. "Yeah, that's what I meant."

Shakily, the older man picked up his drink again and took a huge swallow. By the time he was done choking on _that_, his mental situation had calmed down a bit.

"So tell me really, why're you here?" the teen asked, once Edgar's breathing had settled. "It can't be 'cause you wanted a martini."

"I'm just… not feeling myself. Kind of depressed, kind of angry, kind of lost. I figured that a bar was the right place to go when a person feels like that, and you mentioned this place…."

"Well a bar, yeah, but the Second Ring?" pushed Jimmy, a little surprised.

"What about it?" Edgar asked, nonplussed. He eyed the undulating crowd and the bright lights and took a second to notice the blatantly sexual music, but _come on_, he was only twenty-seven and it wasn't like he'd never been to a nightclub before.

"It's…" the younger man trailed off. He cast a sly look Edgar's way. "Nothing. Just couldn't picture you at a dance club. Do you even dance?"

"No," the brunet answered wistfully. "But you do. Quite well, I might add."

Jimmy grinned, grabbing Edgar's hand lightening-fast and pulling him off his stool. "So," he said, "I'll just have to teach you!"

"Christ, Jimmy!" the older man yelped, fighting for release. "It's not that I _don't_ dance, it's that I _can't_!"

The thief only giggled, taking the dead man's other arm and pulling him towards the heart of the dance floor. People on either side hip-checked Edgar repeatedly, and if it wasn't for Jimmy's expert lead he would have been a bag of broken bones on the floor twice over.

"Don't worry," Jimmy shouted, laughing and pulling his 'student' closer. "Most of the guys I dance with have three left feet anyway!"

Edgar was still dubious, but most of the worry was driven out when Jimmy's hands dropped from his wrists to his hips and pulled _like so_, driving their hips together with a force that short circuited Edgar's still-healing brain.

"Jimmy!" he managed to shout, struggling to disentangle and, of course, failing.

"What?" the younger asked with mock innocence. "We're _dancing_."

And on that note, he swung his hips and not-so-accidentally ground into Edgar. Though, from what he'd seen elsewhere on the floor, that was probably an actual dance move.

"You can be the man," Jimmy told him, all grinning and smug, "so you don't have to do much."

In the next ten minutes, Edgar almost lost his glasses three times and almost stepped on Jimmy once, but after that he felt himself _sink_ into the rhythm, somehow. The world slowly dimmed to flashes of multi-colored light and pounding air and the feeling of Jimmy's body against his. Sweat stung his eyes, but it was far away and not quite real, not compared to the way that Jimmy's eyes were level with his own and alive in a way they never had been before, or to his fingers sliding under Edgar's shirt…

Somewhere in the back of his head, he thought he should've been bothered by that, but why? Why, when it was so good and Jimmy was so happy, and he was dancing, by god he was _dancing_…

He thought dimly, _And this is supposed to be _Hell_?_

At some point, Jimmy had turned so they were back to front, and Edgar could feel blood rushing to his face. The younger man ground his ass into Edgar's hips, and he felt suddenly _dirty_ and… oh god…

Jimmy felt his partner stiffen—really _stiffen_—and twisted his head to give Edgar an 'oh _really'_ look. He ground back again, smirking insufferably, and Edgar realized that with all of his blood split between his burning face and… his… oh Jesus…

Well, he was probably going to faint.

Instead, he disentangled himself and burst through the crowd, knocking over at least one person in his desperate escape—he was pretty tall after all, even if he wasn't very strong—and burst out into one of the shadowy corners, which was, of course, on the opposite side of the room from the door. Well, the exit door; there were a couple of shady rooms down a hallway to his left that he did _not_ want to know about.

Leaning against one wall, he slid to the floor in a haze of embarrassment and… whatever that was. The annoying voice of his catholic youth insisted it was lust, which logically made sense but he really didn't want to…

_Oh_. When he moved his hips like _that_, his pants ground into him the same way Jimmy had. Maybe just once more… No, he shouldn't be indulging in this, he should be trying to make it go _away_, but it was so…

He twisted. Sparks shot through his body, and he twisted again.

It was like some sort of horrible, wonderful dream, and he was in the middle of a crowded building and it was Jimmy, of all people, and damnit, his glasses were slipping.

Fingers brushed the black fabric over his growing erection, and it took him a moment to realize they weren't his own. Eyes rolled left and found Jimmy leaning over him, looking really strange and hungry... though it was hard to tell through the haze. He caught the thief's hand as it reached for his zipper, eyes meeting. Some selfish voice in his head informed him he was being unbelievably stupid but he ignored it. Breathing hard, he pulled the hand back.

"What?" Jimmy demanded, genuinely confused.

"No," Edgar replied, knowing that wasn't a proper answer. "No."

Jimmy scowled but retreated, sliding into a sitting position. He was silent as Edgar caught his breath, coherency returning a bit at a time. The music went on and the people still danced, but every second moved them farther from his mind until it was just him and Jimmy sitting in the dark corner. There was a pervasive sense of disappointment as his hard-on died down bit by bit, but it was for the best.

"So..." Jimmy started, eyes on the mass of undulating bodies ten feet away, "are you still gonna try an' tell me you aren't gay?"

"I... it's just... with you... and I never..." Edgar swallowed thickly and then went on, "this has never happened before. I mean..."

The younger man snorted. "You aren't interested in women, you watch home improvement shows, you turn red when I hit on you, and most importantly, you nearly _came_ from just dancing with me. Me, Jimmy, a guy. What's your argument against _that_?"

"I..." the dead man started, turning his head towards Jimmy in time to catch a smirk on his lips. There went twenty-seven years of careful declassification. He gave hoarse laugh despite himself. "Well, when you put it like _that_..."

Jimmy laughed too, more air than anything else, and leaned his head back against the wall. "Y'know," he said, "you do some fuckin' weird shit, but... I think you may be the best friend I ever had. Even if you do want to get in my pants."

Edgar choked at that, but there wasn't really anything he could say, given the situation. He'd set the boy straight tomorrow, when things had cooled down and he'd had time to work out a credible argument.

"Your leg..." he pointed out instead, "it's healed?"

"Mhm. I woke up this morning an' I was good t' go. Came here to celebrate, y'know?" He stood, taking Edgar's hand for the second time that night and pulling him to his feet as well. "Where you been the past couple days?"

"Sulking," Edgar answered, feeling very tired indeed. "I thought that maybe you weren't good for me. No, it was more like I thought bad things would happen... or I was... ah, well, self-deprevation has always been a catholic thing. Figures it would stick with me."

Jimmy's brows went up but he didn't push. He was probably just as tired, if not more. He laughed again, that harsh breath that sounded infinately more sane than his giggle. At Edgar's questioning look, he explained, "It's just funny this whole episode happened here, tonight."

"Why?"

Smirk. "This is a gay club. Or, more like a free-for-all don't ask no questions pick-your-poison den of sin. M' favorite club."

Edgar went kind of pale. Dear god, he'd just walked right in! That was so embarrasing. On the other hand, a piece of the puzzle finally clicked in. Sodomites: second ring of the seventh circle. Dante. He'd been right after all! Although he could have done without it; this would probably send him banging his head into the nearest wall tomorrow morning, but he was too tired to focus right now.

"C'mon," Jimmy started, pulling Edgar towards the center of the floor, "let's get outta here. Fastest way is through there."

Grimly, Edgar set his shoulders and responded, "Once more into the breach, dear friends."

Of course, he wasn't certain just which situation he meant.

TBC


	9. Sweet Ignorant Bliss

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar  
**_Sweet gnorant bliss  
I wish I could kiss  
you right on the fucking lips. _-MSI

This chapter goes out to Jynx'sbox and Ninalesca, because they're awesome like that.

* * *

Edgar awoke with his head over the arm of a couch and a crick in his neck. Ouch. There was a pressure on his leg, and as soon as he could actually turn his head—which took a minute—he realized it was Jimmy. It was a miracle they had both managed to fit on the sofa, especially since neither of them had fallen off through an entire night.

He tugged his legs back under him and sat up, the movement stirring Jimmy from whatever dream he'd been having. Well, he was sorry about that but he needed breakfast.

The younger man opened one eye rimmed in sleep-smudged eyeliner, took in the situation, and then said quite calmly, "Oh shit."

Jeeze, some people just can't take the mornings. "You'll feel better if you stretch," Edgar said cheerfully, standing and doing so himself.

Jimmy groaned, looked like he was going to roll over and then froze. "We're both still dressed."

"Mhm," the older man agreed, "I don't really own any pajamas, and anyway, I was too tired to change even if I had them. I assume the same goes for you."

Obviously, there was something about this situation Jimmy was having trouble grasping, although Edgar had no idea what that was. He felt bad for anyone who wasn't a morning person—they took so long figuring out the slightest things.

"No I mean," Jimmy tried again, "we're _both_ still _dressed_. I think I missed something. Didn't we…"

He looked at Edgar. Edgar looked at him.

"Oh," they both said.

"Guess that was just a dream," Jimmy mumbled, though the words didn't really register with Edgar.

"Jesus Christ, Jimmy," he managed, exasperated. "I mean… Jesus _Christ_. I don't even know what to say to that."

"Made sense to me," Jimmy defended, "I mean, if I just found out _I_ was gay, I mean, celebratory sex'd be in order. Lots of it. Yep."

"And therein lies the problem," Edgar insisted, shaking his finger. "I am not you. And furthermore, just because I'm now forced to admit my preferences does _not_ mean that I will be _doing_ anything about it, got it?"

"Alright, alright." The younger man put his hands up in surrender. "You're weird, I got it."

In spite of himself, Edgar grinned at that. "Just as long as we're on the same page. Now, have you got anything to eat around here?"

"Maybe," Jimmy shrugged, "I think you left the last packet of poptarts over here last week. Do whatever. I'ma take a shower."

The black haired teen—whose hair was decidedly less spiky after a night of being slept on—extricated himself from the couch's death grip and headed for the bathroom, tugging the hem of his shirt as far down as it would go and holding it firmly in place. Edgar, being Edgar, was distracted from this suspicious behavior by the thought of waiting toaster pastries.

Luckily, there were in fact two poptarts left, and he'd halfway finished the second by the time Jimmy waltzed into the kitchen with a towel tied around his waist. Edgar paused and stared.

"Like what you see?" Jimmy snickered, jutting out a hip.

"Ah…" Best not to answer that. "I was actually looking at those scars…"

They crisscrossed the boy's side and chest like pearlescent brushstrokes, mostly thin but numerous. One or two looked like they'd healed only weeks before, which translated to two weeks before death, since the afterlife put you back together as you were before whatever killed you started killing you, so to speak. Good thing too, or Edgar would look like a patch-work doll from the way he'd been ripped to shreds.

"Oh," Jimmy said, looking a bit deflated. "Forgot about those."

Edgar put down his poptart and stood, circling the bemused teen. "A lot of these look deliberate."

"Yeah, well. Those heal faster anyways."

"Who?" Edgar asked quietly, feeling a weird rush of anger.

Jimmy cocked an eyebrow, staring levelly—easy enough, since they were basically the same height. Edgar could tell he was debating whether to answer or not, but he also knew that Jimmy couldn't resist talking about himself.

"A couple different people," he finally answered, "Dad's girlfriend, some kid from tenth grade. The rest are from fights and accidents. Don't ever jump out a window, especially when you're drunk."

The older man held his gaze for a moment, and he fancied he saw pain deep behind those nearly black eyes, but he wasn't sure because it was Jimmy, and Edgar was never quite sure of anything around him.

"One day we're going to talk about that," the brunette finally said, breaking eye contact. "But right now, it's too early."

He slid back into his seat and picked up his breakfast, acutely aware of Jimmy leaning against the countertops in a way that might have been suggestive if it weren't for the discussion that preceded it. In a lot of ways, he was still the same morally bankrupt, swaggering nineteen-year-old Edgar had met a week or an eternity ago… same snarky attitude, same distrustful eyes, same…

"Hey, Jimmy," he started, turning to face his host. "Your acne's almost gone!"

The younger man rolled his eyes. "Of all the inane… yeah, it is. That's what happens when you have a shower available to you twenty-four seven. And Hell thought it was screwing me over with this tiny apartment; obviously the Devil has never lived out of his car for months at a time."

"Is that what you were doing when you died?"

"Duh. Runaways typically can't afford houses on the Westside with white picket fences. Guess I was lucky to have the car at all, come to think of it."

Edgar finished the last of the poptart and gestured for his companion to go on. "How did you get the car?"

"Well," Jimmy started, obviously relishing the chance for some storytelling, "You remember how I ran out when my parents an' me had an argument?"

The older man nodded.

"So I go slamming into my room like I always do, 'cause I'm fuckin' pissed off an' it's the last straw, an' I sit there an' I think, 'this is what it's gonna be like until I get a degree, an' that's what? Six years?' I was eighteen. So I decide that this ain't gonna cut it. I'd rather be fighting on the streets than dealing with that, an' anyways, I don't want to go to college. Figured I could get a working job somewhere, maybe work with metal. I've always been good with my hands."

He held out said hands as if wanting to prove the point. Edgar nodded again and he went on:

"So I grab my stepmom's keys when she's in the shower, an' some cash an' my wallet, and I'm _out_ of there. You know, it was supposed to be my car anyway, it's only fair. I hit the road, an' they probably had a warrant out for me, but I never saw anything about it when I was arrested. Maybe they didn't even bother? But you'd think they'd want the car back, at least. Weird people."

"So?" Edgar pushed, leaving his seat and clearing off the table as he listened.

"So I drive my way to this city, an' I'm straight broke by now. Haven't eaten in a week, not really. At this point, I'm like 'fuck it', and I shoplift myself a meal. I'm good, too. No one ever catches me. I end up staying in the city, since it's big enough to hide in an' I don't like the idea of doing the road-trip thing again. Went to school some, though I never actually signed up. Mostly went to meet people, you know? The CD store I worked at didn't seem to mind if I disappeared off for hours, an' who was gonna tell 'em? That's pretty much what I was doing until he killed me."

"Who?" Edgar blinked, thrown. He hadn't known Jimmy was murdered too—though, it did make sense.

Jimmy gave him the shifty eye and pushed off the counter, saying, "That's enough storytellin' for one morning, don't you think? I gotta change."

And he left a rather suspicious Edgar Vargas in his wake, one who was suddenly struck with a hypothesis.

--

They passed a week in a certain fashion—or at least, seven night-to-day transitions, because who could ever tell how long had _actually_ passed?

Edgar, who wasn't quite certain what was going on, only that he rather liked it, spent most of the 'day' wandering about Hell and meeting interesting (if not very nice) people. Jimmy, to the best of his knowledge, spent it either hiding from the daylight in his bedroom or scamming booze off convenience store clerks.

He only knew about that because he had actually walked in on it one afternoon, while trying to find a packet of moon pies for sale somewhere. As it turned out, the underworld didn't offer _anything_ that might make a positive difference in the life of the damned, moon pies included. That was disappointing, but then, so was finding Jimmy in the middle of threatening the management with a knife.

In the end, Edgar himself had payed for the beer. _C'est la vie_. Er… _mors_… or something. Edgar had never taken French class anyway.

The living room got painted, and he and Jimmy discussed just about everything under the sun—they disagreed on about half of it—and avoided the Terrible Three questions pretty well. Whenever discussion seemed to be headed that direction, Edgar would make some inane comment about paint colors or marble table tops, and Jimmy would let it go. More, it must be admitted, for his own amusement than because his friend was particularly good at changing the subject, at least not when it came to his own problems.

On the fifth day, Edgar brought up the question of good and evil.

Jimmy snorted, slinging himself over the side of his sofa, as per usual. "Dude, aren't you basically an angel?"

Edgar rolled his eyes. "Emphatically _no_. The concept of dead humans becoming angels on ascension is a very new one, and in fact, is totally impossible. Different species, you see." Edgar eyed him carefully. "And wouldn't it make _you_ a demon by the same token?"

"Uh, case an' point, fairy-boy," the thief replied, grinning when the annoying nick-name received its proper reaction: a pained look and a huff from Edgar's direction. "What's the point of debating good an' evil if _you're_ good and _I'm_ evil? 'S stupid."

"I don't believe that," the older man replied stoutly, crossing his arms.

"What?" Jimmy's brows went up. "That I'm evil or you're good?"

Edgar looked momentarily perplexed and then replied, "The evil part. I don't think you're evil, not really. I mean, no offense, but you had to have mucked things up pretty badly to end up here, but still… not evil."

"You," Jimmy insisted, pointing a stiff finger at Edgar's face, "have no idea what my life was like. What I've done. What I _wanted_ to do. What I _got away_ with."

For some Christians, life is a lot of shades of gray. Very confusing, very complicated, and they don't claim to have all the answers. So, for lack of anything more concrete, they draw themselves some lines, go about their business, and hope that they drew the lines in the right place. Edgar, of course, is one of those people.

"Well, I have an _idea_," the 'angel' retorted, "but I'm good at reading people, Jimmy. I know you aren't evil. And see, I'm here talking to you for the umpteenth time. Would a good person spend that much time with a lost cause?"

"Oh, so I'm a cause?" the younger man sniped. Edgar recognized this sort of thing—he did it often enough. The boy didn't want to talk so he decided to argue. Juvenile.

"No," he replied mildly, "it's a figure of speech. Anyway, how do you know if you're evil or not?"

"I'm a crook," Jimmy answered simply. "The extent of my… crookage is none of your business. Let's just leave it at that, yeah?"

"But--"

"I don't wanna talk about it! God, why does everyone want to _talk_ about everything? There are some things that just don't need to be discussed."

Edgar frowned. "You do a lot of talking yourself."

The thief removed his head from where it was buried under a pillow and sneered. "Yeah, but _I_ talk about the important stuff."

"Ah, yes. Important. Like drinks and cars and knives and me being gay?"

Jimmy grinned. "Now you're catchin' on. See, I knew you could be taught."

And maybe he forgot about the conversation, but Edgar didn't. In fact, he stored it in the little portion of his brain labeled "The Jimmy Question", a section which was soon going to need more room to house all the puzzling conundrums thrown his way.

On the seventh day, Jimmy insisted they go out to a restaurant—in the loosest sense of the term, of course.

"See," he said, sitting on the kitchen counter, "it's been, like, two weeks or something, an' you still don't hate me. 'S gotta be some kind of record."

"That's a pretty dismal record," Edgar replied dubiously, "And I'm not certain I want to a part of it."

Jimmy jumped off the countertop and swung an arm around Edgar's shoulder, invading personal space with typical disregard for anyone's comfortability besides his own. "Yeah, well, you don't have much choice. We're going out to lunch if I have to drag you on a leash."

Edgar rolled his eyes. "Oh, the horror," he sighed, pulling away, "Just let me get my guest pass, okay? I don't want another _hounds of Hell_ episode."

Between Jimmy running back for another layer of eyeliner and Edgar forgetting his shoes, somehow the managed to get out the door and onto the street. Jimmy eyed the road distastefully.

"See, this is why we need a car. We're always walkin' everywhere and I'm _tired_ of it. The guys at the club think it's hilarious, and if there's one thing you don't want it's those losers deciding you're low man on the totem pole."

"You can't afford a car," Edgar repeated for the umpteenth time. "You don't even have enough money for… well, anything. How are we paying for lunch, anyway?"

"I've got some stashed away for this sorta thing. And I wouldn't buy the car, I'd steal it. Fish showed me how a few months before I died, and I'm pretty good; I only got caught the first time I tried it. Besides, there's no police in Hell."

Edgar tilted his head and mouthed a hello to his ocular friend in the sky, then looked back at Jimmy. "That was the time you got arrested, then?"

"Yeah," Jimmy said, looking pleased.

"…But…" the older man stopped walking, "without parents to post bail, how did you…"

"Oh," the thief shrugged, waving a hand, "I never actually went to jail or anything."

Before Edgar could ask how he managed _that_—which he was dying to know—a very pretty girl bumped into Jimmy and thoroughly distracted them both. She looked back and forth between the two of them, and Edgar was suddenly conscious of what a weird pair they were. The girl smiled sweetly, resting her attention on Jimmy.

"Hi," she said, clasping her hands in front of her in a way that made her cleavage rather obvious, which _might_ have been accidental on her part. "Can you tell me which way the Aberzombie is? I'm recently deceased and…"

Jimmy eyed her endowments with an intensity that made Edgar want to slap him into the other side of tomorrow. "Well, I'm not what you'd call familiar with that side of town, but I think I could help you out."

"Oh good!" she squeal, grabbing the boy's hand and making to drag him off.

Edgar grabbed his other hand and whispered, "I don't think that's such a great idea." Something about the girl struck him wrong, and he really didn't want to see something bad happen to Jimmy if he was right.

"Relax," the younger man said, shaking his friend off and trailing after the girl, "I'll be right back. Just gotta give some _instructions_."

_More like makeout for ten minutes while I stand here like an idiot_, Edgar seethed. Still, he sat down on the edge of the sidewalk and waited.

Later (who knew how much later? He was, as repeatedly been said, very bad at telling time) Jimmy stalked back, alone, looking very steamed and suddenly dangerous. Like he could, and would, hurt you if you stood too close. With an electrical plug.

"Um…" Edgar started.

"Godamnit," the younger man hissed, "Go_damn_it. That bitch."

"What…"

"Chicks. God, what a joke. They look pretty, but when you get down to it they're just as ugly as I am. Uglier. All the fucking same. That's what I get for forgetting I'm in Hell, stupid fucking me. Forgot that people are shitty through and through."

Edgar stood and put a hand on Jimmy's shoulder, which he then shrugged off. "What are you talking about?"

"Same old thing," the younger man scowled, fists clenching. "Some bitch and her boyfriend. Guy wants to look tough for his chick, of course he beats up the kid with the eyeliner. They all think they're so fucking strong and the girlfriends're worse because they actually _believe_ it, and I'd bet money that stunt was her idea. Vicious bitches, every one of 'em."

Well that was… a lot of things. Sexist, chief among them. But Edgar couldn't help thinking it was more complicated than that; this sounded thought out, as if he'd been telling himself the same things for a long time. "…Jimmy…"

"Fuck you," he growled, "It's all your fault."

"Mine?" Edgar echoed, taken aback.

"Yeah, yours. If you weren't so fucking nice, I wouldn't have… I woulda been prepared… I mean, what do you think you're…"

Possibly, it had just occurred to Jimmy how ludicrous that argument was. He fell silent, seething.

"So…" Edgar started, "would you prefer me to be… not nice? I don't have a lot of experience, but if it'll make you happy…"

Jimmy scowled and turned away, effectively hiding his face. "Fuck you," he repeated, "That's not what I meant."

Edgar tugged on his companion's arm, directing them both towards the original destination. If he was going to let this sort of thing deter him, he would have given up two weeks ago and been done with it. Jimmy was just… complicated. But he always bounced back.

"Good," Edgar replied serenely, "because while I'd do a lot of things for you, my acting skills only extend so far."

Jimmy gave him an unreadable look. "You know, most people would have given up on me by now."

Hm. Hadn't he just been thinking that? "That would be sort of silly," he smiled, "and I kind of already tried. Didn't work."

They walked in silence for a while, fending off the souls of newly passed hobos and generally ignoring the comments that strangers shouted in their direction. Edgar could tell it was harder for Jimmy, but he managed impressively.

"I still hate chicks," the boy sighed, tucking fishnet-clad hands into pockets.

"That's a bad attitude," Edgar pointed out. "They aren't _all_ bad."

"Yeah?" Jimmy snorted. "You don't think _anyone's_ all bad. You have terrible judgment."

"I do not," Edgar shot back, miffed.

"What?" The boy started, fixing on an empty spot beyond the older man's shoulder, "Who, Edgar? Yeah, nice guy, _baaad_ judge of character." He turned back to his companion, "That's what people say about you, I guarantee it."

"Shows what you know," Edgar muttered, "people don't talk about me at all."

Jimmy waved a dismissive hand. "Shows what _you_ know. I know for a fact that I talk about you."

For his part, Edgar nearly tripped. "You talk about me?" he sputtered, the concept being entirely foreign and rather surreal. "What… what do you say?"

"Pretty much what I just said," the younger man shrugged, "except sometimes I throw in 'ditz' or 'virgin', just for spice."

Edgar actually tripped that time. "You tell them _what_?" he gasped from a rather uncomfortable position on the ground. "I am not! And anyways, there'd be nothing wrong with it if I was."

"Uh-huh." He looked doubtful. "I find that hard to believe."

"Which part?"

"Both of 'em," he replied, offering Edgar a hand up—which was an oddly considerate gesture for Jimmy.

"Well, I have… you know… when I was in college…" Edgar managed, pulling himself out of a sprawl and to his feet. Just for safe measure, he added, "a woman."

Up ahead, Edgar spotted the Mexican restaurant where he and Jimmy had their dramatic encounter two weeks before. He could still feel the lump that wine bottle gave him if he thought about it for too long. It was still a bit of a mystery why Jimmy had been up there in the first place…

"And she was a bitch, right?" Jimmy said triumphantly, displaying an unusual stretch of the attention span. "As soon as you fucked her, she turned into a bitch."

Edgar winced painfully. "No, and I wish you wouldn't say it like that. She was perfectly reasonable, once she sobered up."

"Really," the younger man deadpanned. "Now you _have_ to explain that one."

The door was right in front of them, and Edgar was now stuck with the uncomfortable choice of discussing the night he lost his virginity in the middle of the street or in a pseudo-Mexican restaurant. Oh boy.

"Um…" he grabbed Jimmy's arm and pulled them into the alley where—hopefully—no one would listen in on the—again, hopefully—short conversation. "Well, you see, there was this party…"

"How did I know?"

"And I was really only invited because I'd done the host a favor a while before—"

"What _kind_ of favor?"

"And I wandered over to the drinks, because I can't dance—"

"'S not what I remember."

"And there was this girl who was really drunk, and she said I reminded her of an actor in this movie _Zeitgeist..."_

"I saw a commercial for that!"

"And she took me upstairs to one of the bedrooms, and I'd had a bit to drink myself, actually, and then…"

"What?"

"Well, I was waiting for you to interject some derogatory comment."

"Oh. Fuck you."

"Exactly," Edgar agreed. "And then she kind of… er… forced herself on me."

Jimmy gave him a withering glare. "_That_ was how you had sex? A girl _raped_ you?"

"No!" the older man shouted, alarmed. "I mean, I didn't instigate…"

The glare softened into something that looked almost like pity, if you didn't know Jimmy very well. "Figures that your first time would be non-consensual," he sniped, "You _look_ like a rape victim."

Edgar was very uncomfortable with the fact that he wasn't insulted at all. And the look Jimmy was giving him—transformed again, now into something very intense—was really not helping.

"I don't know why you're so obsessed with rape," Edgar muttered, the 'r' word sounding unwieldy and awkward on his tongue.

"It's a fact of life," Jimmy responded, sounding as if he had really waned to say something else.

"…Yes," Edgar agreed for the sake of the argument, "but _we're_ dead."

"An' on that note, let's eat."

Following Jimmy's lead, Edgar stepped out of the alley and swung into the giant taco-shaped building. The décor was cheap and tacky and the service was sullen, but if you can't take the heat then get out of the underworld—as Edgar liked to say. The tacos were good, and that was the thing that mattered.

The boy at the cash register gave Jimmy a horrible dirty look, and Edgar something that unnervingly bordered on pity, which caused the older man to stumble over his order in a rather embarrassing way.

"Have you noticed that about half the people down here hate you on sight?" Asked a perturbed Edgar, swiping his order off the questionably clean countertop.

"I think it'd be hard to miss," his companion replied caustically. "Though I'm a little surprised _you_ noticed."

Edgar slid into a booth, followed by Jimmy, and sighed. "It just makes me nervous. I'm always worried that somebody is going to do something horrible to you while I'm not here."

The younger man rolled his eyes. "One," he held up one finger, "I don't think you'd make much of a difference in a fight, except as a casualty. An' two," he held up a second finger, "Anyone who'd wanna mess with me would have to be a force to recon with. I don't go down easy."

Edgar was about to counter that point with some statistic and notes on his height and weight, and possibly a lecture on mob psychology, when a sheet of paper on the table distracted him. He picked it up, squinting to read it through the layer of dirty shoe-prints.

"Looks like it's written in blood," Jimmy offered, in an offhand sort of way. "Written in _cold_ blood," he amended, apparently liking the sound of it better.

Edgar rolled his eyes. Though it _did_ look rather suspiciously rusty brown….

"_When the eye burneth_—that's old English, I suppose—_and the night turn dark, every citizen of Hell if invited to a_… I assume that's 'party'… _to commemoratte the falling of Adam and Eeve—_well really now—_sharl be held at Pandemmonium, currently located unto thee just east of every city. Dimm personagef are not expected to attend unless they shall be prepared for the bating of bear—_that's just barbaric_—and the Grieslie King shall laugh at mortal any foolishe enough to find themmselves lost in hif palace for all eternity. That meanf most of you. Verily, stay off the fancy rugf."_

"Condescending little shit, isn't it?" Jimmy mused around a bite of taco.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Edgar replied, automatically. "Anyways, the Devil is actually very tall. We've met."

"Huh," grunted the thief, trying not to look impressed. "Had a moment with 'im too, y'know, back when we had that satanic ritual."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"What did he say?"

"He said, 'You? Oh, God's just going to _love_ this.'"

"Odd."

"Yeah."

TBC


	10. Wheels Within Wheels

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

The mind is its own place, and in it self,

Can make a Hell of Heav'n, or a Heav'n of Hell.

John Milton, _Paradise Lost_.

* * *

It was time to do something about the wardrobe. Really, it was.

He had three outfits, all in all. He kept them in a shopping bag under his fold out chair, and he changed into them in the room behind the registration desk, which had no discernable purpose anyways. The rules of Hell didn't seem to apply to him, as he never got dirty or greasy, even though there was nowhere for him to take a shower or wash his clothes. It was very strange.

But still, something had to be done about the wardrobe.

Edgar held up the purple t-shirt he'd planned to change into, sniffing distastefully. It was so… tight. And… what had Jimmy said? 'Provocative'? Well, he supposed it would be on anyone else, but on him it was just stupid, in his opinion. Jimmy, of course, wouldn't give him a straight answer when he tried to get an opinion.

He really needed some different clothes. His old oxfords and button-downs, and plain, baggy tees. No one would stop him in the street and call him a fag in _those_ clothes, no one would probably even look at him.

Now, why did that sound so unappealing?

He glanced around at the field of blissing souls, all glaze-eyed and zombiefied, totally unaware of him. They were like strange fleshy plants sprouting from the dirt, a crop more than a flock. If only his old pastor could see _this_.

It was time for serious consideration. It was time to make an honest evaluation. If he hated these clothes so much, why did he keep wearing them? If he hated the attention, why didn't he go back to the way he was before? If he had liked being invisible so much, then why had he been so lonely?

Well…

A memory popped into his head, of his first girlfriend one summer a very long time ago. They'd gone to a pool, and he'd been so embarrassed to walk around in a swim suit. Tara—that was her name—had dithered about, staring at the water and then dragging him off for ice-cream, and then staring at the water again. He'd asked her why she didn't just jump in, and she said something about cold water and not wanting to ruin her hair. And then she stared again.

Finally, as she'd finished her fourth circuit around the edge of the pool, one of her friends had crept up behind her and pushed. And when Tara came up for air, she hadn't been angry at all—in fact, she'd looked thrilled, and she had proceeded to ignore Edgar for the rest of the afternoon. As he sat on the bench, eyeing his confusing date, it occurred to him that she'd wanted someone to push her in the whole time.

She hadn't had the guts to jump in, so she'd pined and brooded until someone had enough and shoved her in. He'd though it was weird at the time—ridiculously passive and silly, and way more complicated than it had to be, but now…

Wasn't that just what he'd been doing?

Another memory surfaced, of Jimmy dragging him onto the dance floor as he struggled to get free. He'd _wanted _to dance. He'd _always_ wanted to dance. Why had he fought against it?

Well there you are, then. Edgar was a passive rag-doll without the cojones to actually do what he wanted to. He had to let other people push him into it. This was, of course, a troubling notion—also, it sounded a little too much like something Jimmy would say.

So, there was the microcosm of the problem: suck it up and buy new clothes, or accept that he actually kind of liked the ones he had?

He meditated on that for while, ducking once to avoid a rabbit-angel zooming through the space his head should have occupied. In the end, he decided that there was no point in attempting to follow pattern when he'd already admitted to the problem, and resolved to keep the clothes.

Besides, they made it easier to pose as a snooty alternative-fiction author when he was buying books.

And with that settled, he hopped off his chair and headed for Hell.

-o-

"I'm telling you," Edgar insisted, "it's all in your head. Heaven would be just as horrible as Hell if you weren't meant to be there."

"No," Jimmy shot back, "the whole point of heaven is that it's s'possed to be fucking _awesome_. You have to be happy there, it's, like, the law or something."

"They're both just places in the universe. The real Heaven is in your head, or the real Hell. There's this passage in _Paradise Lost_, I think it was..."

"I thought you said that was just dog… dog… fiction?"

"Well, yes, but… that's not important!" Edgar stopped his friend's come-back with a glare. Now how did it go… "_Though the devil should go many millions of miles, desiring to enter heaven, and see it, yet he would still be in Hell_. The point is, Hell is a state of being."

"I went to church a few times," Jimmy pushed, unconvinced, "an' that's definitely not what it sounded like."

"Well, think about it like this. We're both here in the same room, aren't we?"

The younger man sank into the thin cushions, scowling. "Yeah."

"And yet, only one of us is damned. I'm in Hell, but I'm not _in _Hell, you see? So it only seems to reason that you'd be just a badly off in or out of Heaven."

The two glared at each other, a silent battle of wills an stubbornness. Usually, Jimmy won these, since Edgar couldn't muster up the conviction to really hold his ground, but this was one argument he was determined to win.

Jimmy must have sensed the resolve. "Okay, fine." He held his hands up in surrender. "But I don't really see why."

"A person's sins weigh down on them," Edgar explained, "because deep down, most people know they're doing the wrong things. Since all that's holding us together here is our souls and our memories, the things you've done are right on the surface where you can't ignore them. You have to live with it every day, and think about it when you're alone, and normally, you're pretty much always alone. You and I are the exception."

"An' you know this… how?"

The older man sighed. "I don't know, per say, I just have this feeling, and I can kind of back it up with examples. I'm sure you know what I mean, right? Everybody down here is alone, desperately clinging to the things they cared about in life. You know, cars, women, clothes… but it doesn't fill the empty space."

Jimmy looked at him for a long time, until the silence began to grow heavy and uncomfortable. Well, if he hadn't been so pushy about visiting Heaven, this wouldn't have happened.

"…But you _aren'_t damned. You can't know that."

"Ah." Edgar stopped and thought about it. "I'm practiced in observing people, you could say. The average person is basically an open book to me, and following the scientific method doesn't hurt either. Observe, hypothesize, run experiment, conclude. What do you think I'm doing when I'm not with you?"

"Bein' pick-pocketed?" the younger man guessed, more snarky than the situation warranted. "Anyways, you still haven't figured me out, so you can't be all that great."

"How do you know I haven't?" Edgar asked, more to extend the conversation than to actually argue with him.

"Please. You still don't get half of my innuendos, an' you haven't asked about who killed me, an' most important, _you're still here. _You wouldn't be if you'd figured me out."

It was odd that he kept coming back to that. He either had a very low opinion of Edgar or himself, and it was a bit difficult to tell which. On the one hand, he didn't seem depressed—angry, if anything—but on the other hand, he often mentioned how he only believed things because Edgar told him so. Surely that displayed confidence…

"Well, you're a very complicated person," Edgar shrugged, cutting off his mental spiral. "And I assure you that nothing you could tell me would make me leave you."

Jimmy mumbled something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like 'married'. Then he went on, "Okay, whatever. Don't blame me if you end up trapping yourself in a web of _happy thoughts_, I tried to warn you."

"Dully noted."

The black-haired boy sunk back into the sofa, and Edgar leaned against the wall. Perhaps he should think about getting a chair? Not that he minded sitting on the floor, but it did give Jimmy and unfair advantage, what with—

"So, I think it's your turn for the world shattering flashback," Jimmy said, breaking into his thoughts.

"What?"

"You know," Jimmy rolled a hand, held over his head so Edgar could see it from the floor. "It's your turn to fess up about what was goin' on before you died. I know you got a story."

"My life was perfectly bland," Edgar replied stoutly, crossing his arms—not that Jimmy would know that.

"The hell it was," the younger man snorted. "You already told me all about that curse of yours—though I have yet to feel anything particularly unlucky—and you clam up every time I bring up suicide, which, okay, isn't that often, but it's still more than you being Christian, I just know it."

What do you say to that? Edgar sighed. "You've got the wrong idea."

"No, no I don't," Jimmy said, resolute. "An' since we're havin' this serious discussion, I think it's time we got into all that. Y'know, so we're even."

Edgar was all fought out. Really. He wasn't cut out for all this arguing and stubbornness, in fact, it was a skill he'd mostly developed in the last weeks and it was severely lacking in stamina. And, he would have at least held his own if he was fresh, but by now…

"What do you want to know?" he gave in, falling backwards and laying on the carpet with one arm over his face.

Jimmy turned his head so Edgar could just see his eyes. "Dude, I want the story. Something happened to you, something shitty, an' it was about suicide an' that luck thing an' what you did for a living. I wanna know what it was."

"You've been waiting for this for a while, haven't you?" Edgar accused, eyes narrowing behind his glasses.

"You could say that," Jimmy agreed, "Now, start at the beginning."

So Edgar started at what he thought was the beginning.

Three years before Johnny murdered him, Edgar had graduated from college with a degree in psychology and an education minor. A school in town was having problems about the same time, a rash of suicides across its gleaming exterior of efficiency. The Institute of Science was an alternative private school mostly for the children of rich atheists who refused to send children to Christian establishments, and something about its sterile hallways must have broken the already fragile spirits within.

They hired Edgar without even meeting him, snapping up the first resume on the pile, not realizing that their choice was, ironically, recently appointed deacon of a near-by church. They didn't much care when they found out, though, as Edgar Vargas was an agreeable man who followed directions to the T, and really they had only hired him to appease the nervous parents. And so, Mr. Vargas became the school psychiatrist.

Among the student population, he found a handful of teens who were actually Christians or Wiccans or Muslims in their heart of hearts, but were scared to admit it. Religion—of any sort—in that school spelled instant death by ridicule. He particularly liked to spend time with them, partially because he found the situation rather ironic, and partially because they were generally nice kids. One thing turned into another, and the teacher found himself leading prayer meetings in the evenings, all students invited, totally confidential.

He suspected his superiors wouldn't be happy with him harboring religion in a school that made its living by denouncing the church.

After working there for two years, and carrying his secret sessions for a bit more than one, two things of importance happened. One: Edgar met Damon, a smart kid with a passion for Milton and Dante, purely from an analytical point of view. A strange sort of friendship grew, and Edgar found himself spending as much time with the kid as he manage, eventually meeting outside of school.

At this point, Jimmy suggested that perhaps his friend had had a bit of a crush, to which Edgar replied with an unusually violent threat to leave. Jimmy shut up.

The second thing that happened was the principal discovering Edgar's pet project. As expected, it didn't go over well, but he wasn't fired—which had always been up in the air. Sessions stopped, one or two children's parents were alerted, Edgar got a strong talking to about authority and overstepping the bounds therein, and Damon, who had been attending the more recent meets, found out exactly how opposed his parents were to anything and everything religious.

Edgar wasn't the only one who found himself in trouble.

The next time they had one of their Saturday lunches, Damon confided that he was really getting tired of his parents, and this was only the latest in a long string of problems. The signs were all there, if Edgar had been looking, but he was much too close to the problem at this point.

Life went on. Edgar continued counseling, pulling the students from the evening circle in for one-on-one, quiet prayer meets—Edgar may have been a pushover on everything else, but when someone really needed him, he fought Hell itself for them. Meanwhile, the principal found he had a special fondness for belittling Edgar in the staffroom.

The Saturday lunches grew more distant. It wasn't long before Edgar started to worry about his friend… student. But there wasn't much of anything he could do, since Damon kept his problems to himself, and using professional methods just felt _wrong_ somehow.

And then—and it shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was—Damon was dead. Edgar had read a lot about grief, had helped a lot of people through it, but the second hand experience can't compare to the real thing. Numbness, a kind of cold disbelief tempered with an unbelievable sense of reality. They found a note in Damon's room, and there was a line addressed to Edgar.

He'd hoped that this wouldn't be too hard on him.

Just like that. No dramatic speeches, no pleading, no second chance. Edgar couldn't even pray for him, because he'd been a rock-solid atheist and had never believed in anything beyond ghosts. And god, he had hoped it wouldn't be too _hard_ on Edgar. What a selfish little prick, didn't he realize that this was probably the hardest thing Edgar had ever dealt with? That Edgar's life was, and always had been, an empty lonely thing and there were precious few bright spots, despite his upbeat attitude, and this little shove could and would send him spiraling into the darkness?

At this point, Edgar realized he was talking more to himself than Jimmy, and his throat was uncomfortably tight.

Time lost its coherency after that. Edgar went through his routine, put on a façade, went to church, school, staff meetings… and he was alone. Pathetically so, because what kind of self respecting adult hinges his entire happiness on one student? A student they can't even protect from something as preventable as suicide? A car accident, that would be different, but…

He was pretty sure he'd never been depressed before, but there was a first time for everything.

He supposed this was how Damon felt, like the color was sucked out of everything, and it was winter too… maybe if he could just make it till summer. It would be alright then. Then, he'd stop waking up in the middle of the night and hoping he'd died in his sleep, because that was a horrible way to live.

And then, inexplicably, he _had_ died.

Not by his own hand, because he would never actually _do _that, but by a madman with dark eyes and a tenuous grasp on reality, and-equally inexplicably-his life brightened for a moment, because Edgar loved a challenge and Johnny was absolutely _fascinating_…

And in the minutes before he died, Edgar forgot that he had given up on life.

"Ripped to shreds, right?" Jimmy asked, drawing his companion out of that strange place that only dark memories can take you.

The murdered man lifted his head to see Jimmy peering over the arm of the couch, suddenly very much as aware of the apartment as if he'd slammed back into his body from floating somewhere far away.

"Right," he agreed. "Incredibly painful, but I suppose it was for a good cause."

"This guy," Jimmy said, narrowing his eyes, "he kidnaps you off the street for absolutely no fuckin' reason just as you're starting to get better, straps you to a torture machine, rants at you for the last chunk of your life an' then rips you to shreds, an' you say it was for a _good cause_?"

"Well," Edgar defended, "he did need my blood."

"What is _wrong with you?"_ the younger man shouted, startling Edgar quite badly. "You go through all of that, all of _that_, an' you aren't even _mad_? That's just… just… retarded! Why don't you hate that kid? Why don't you hate Nny? You'd never done anything to anyone, an' they just… they don't even…"

Edgar pulled himself into a sitting position and smiled weakly. "I never knew you cared," he joked softly. He didn't remember calling Johnny 'Nny', but then, he hadn't really been listening to himself.

"Yeah, well," -Jimmy stopped. "I don't! It's just not fucking fair, that's all. I mean, if this shit happens to _you_, there's no hope for the rest of us."

That was flattering, in a weird way.

"You have to leave some things in the past," Edgar said, "Because they'll just hold you down otherwise. I left all of it behind when I died—well, okay, maybe a little of that was repression, but still—and you know, I'm _happy_ now."

They were quiet for a minute, and Jimmy seemed to be debating something in his head, fingertips twitching on the battered yellow-brown fabric of the sofa.

"When you come to Hell," Jimmy said, slowly, "all the souls load up on a subway train. You pass through these turnstiles, an' you have to put this coin through a slot, an' it's not really a coin, because it's got all your _pride_ and your _satisfaction_ in it… an' then you get on the train, an' it's packed, an' you have to sit there, sweatin', until the thing stops and lets you off. It lasts a lot longer than it should. Gives you too much time to think. Nobody talks."

Edgar nodded, admittedly tired but nonetheless interested.

"An' me, I sat there, thinkin' about what I'd done an' how I died, an' I thought maybe I'd been going about things the wrong way this whole time…"

"Repentance," Edgar murmured, and Jimmy didn't ask him to repeat it.

"My question, I guess," the thief went on, "is... y'know, they say everybody gets a second chance. But do we still get a second chance after we die?"

"I don't know," Edgar replied, eyes on the red sky outside the window, remembering cloudy gray days in the dead of winter when he'd wondered the same thing. "I don't know."

But he'd like to think so.

TBC


	11. Messin With My Man's Bad for Your Health

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Or, similarly, fuck the sinner, fuck the sin.

* * *

"Brooklyn's got nothin' on this," Jimmy said, kicking a particularly offensive can out of the road. "Hail Satan, I guess."

The two of them strolled along, more or less, an ambling kind of walk that matched their ambling kind of talk. The sunless sky beat down on them as hot as Hades (pun intended), but the streets were still milling with people and the smell of sulfuric acid lingered in the darker alleys. A typical eternity in Hell.

"It's not so bad," Edgar replied, smiling up at the sky. Al was up there, glaring away at an alley to their right. Probably a mugging. Al hated muggings. "Sure, the company is generally terrible, and the only things to eat are tacos and bagels, and the shrieks of the damned keep you up at all hours of the day, but the sky is a lovely shade of red."

"Bah," was Jimmy's only response.

They were walking along Cocytus Avenue, practicing the art of ignoring people's glares and rude comments. It seemed that Jimmy was getting better, and that made Edgar smile even wider. His favorite book store was up ahead, too, a ways along, and the dead man was planning to drag his friend inside and forcibly introduce him to proper literature.

"Y'know, it's weird," Jimmy started, eyeing a trio of recently deceased, nervous-looking cheerleaders on the opposite side of the street. "You don't really see people… like, _together_ down here. You see couples, maybe sometimes, but never people like… like us."

"Oh?" Edgar prodded, intrigued. _Friends_, perhaps was what Jimmy meant. He'd noticed that too, but hadn't thought much of it. It was a symptom of damnation, leaving each soul an island in a sea of people, eternally lonely but never alone. It gave a person time to think... an empty place to consider... and it fed into Edgar's steadily growing hypothesis on the Reasons Behind Hell.

"Yeah. Looks kinda lonely. I've seen a lot of my old… uh… the guys around, an' they're never together..." Jimmy made a helpless gesture that Edgar recognized as his _I know what I'm talking about but I can't explain it _motion_._ "It's just… you know."

"Do you think that's why they glare at us?" Edgar asked with a laugh.

"No," Jimmy answered rather darkly. "Anyways, why are you taking me here?"

"Since you were denied both the last year of high school and the opportunity for college, it's my job to educate you. We're going to a book store, and we're picking you out some required reading."

"Of all the lame-ass…" The younger man snorted. "Th'hell is that _your _job?"

"Once a teacher always a teacher," Edgar replied breezily, spotting the sign up ahead. "Besides, books are probably my favorite topic, and if you want to be around me you've got to know a thing or two."

Curiously, Jimmy didn't argue with that. He simply reached out and pulled the door open for Edgar—also curious, in that Jimmy was not what you'd call 'considerate' by any stretch of the means.

They ventured inside, greeted by darkness that was utterly impractical for a bookstore, as well as a bunch of Anne Rice wanna-be titles lining the front display. Jimmy wrinkled his nose, muttering something about stupid fucking Goths which was funny considering his choice in wardrobe.

After the hit-up-gone-wrong last time he was here, Edgar was wary of attracting employee attention. If you kept quiet, they generally ignored you—terrible customer service, but actually helpful in this case—and he doubted that the same boy would be here again… but still, you can't be too careful.

"Here," Edgar directed, pointing to the dusty back shelves. "All the good literature is in the back."

"Which means something totally different coming from you," Jimmy muttered, dutifully following his companion.

Before they met, Edgar would have been appalled by the innuendo. Now he just smiled—asinine as he was, who could help but love Jimmy?

"Let's see…" the older man ran his fingers over the beautifully bound, if dusty, spines. "_Dante_ in modern syntax… yes, we'll need that one… _Anthem_… couldn't hurt… and that one… oh, and that one…"

The thief waited more or less patiently behind him as he made his way down the rows, stopping every so often to recount the story of how he found _this_ book, or the professor who had taught him with _that_ one. They collected six by the end of it, all fairly short and simply written for Jimmy's sake. Edgar supposed he'd have to go up front and actually _buy _these books, since there were so many of them… drat, but he'd been so close to escaping.

"My moral compass should really learn to take a nap every so often," he muttered to himself. Gesturing to Jimmy, he went on louder, "Come on, we have to purchase these."

"So…" the younger man started, checking out the dusty depths of the rarely-visited bookstore. "…Why _Dante's Inferno_? Don't you think I know enough about Hell?"

"The Devil has a strange sense of humor," Edgar answered. "You read that, and suddenly you'll get all _kinds_ of inside jokes. It's ridiculous, really."

No one was at the counter, predictably, and Jimmy took great joy in beating the life out of the service bell. Eventually, one of the heavily made-up boys from the back room sauntered up, gave Jimmy—who was still pounding away at the bell—a look cold enough to kill a kitten, and turned to Edgar.

"Yeah?"

Edgar took this moment to summon up his Book Store Personality, a mental switch flick, and shot back, "_Books_. Ring them up."

Not to be out-assed, the clerk took great pleasure in screwing up the very simple code swiping process, and even more in dropping all the lovely books unceremoniously into the waiting bag. Edgar buried a wince at their loud 'thunk'.

"Cash or credit?" the Goth sneered, tapping black fingernails on the counter-top.

Edgar did not deign to answer, instead holding out his card with an expression so positively _dripping_ distaste that it seemed to plop onto the counter and roll, leaving trails of haughty goo in its wake. The worker appeared to be losing their battle of unpleasantness, since he said nothing to that and simply swiped the little blue card. It had clouds all over it, and silver lettering that said, "Ask and you shall receive."

Jimmy, meanwhile, was looking bemused by the whole exchange, and kept trying to catch Edgar's eye. Of course, the older man was in character so he completely ignored his friend.

"Hey, Edgar," he finally said, sounding frustrated, "What the fuck, man?"

Unfortunately, the clerk jumped on that. "Hey, tell your boyfriend to shut up. I'm trying to ignore you."

"Fuck you," Edgar shot back, batting not an eye, "I wouldn't even _know_ you were ignoring me with that weak-ass glare."

"Snob."

"Bitch."

"Wanna-be writer."

"At least I don't have to get my coworkers to jack me off every time I pass _Interview with a Vampire_."

"...You're good."

"I know."

And with that exchange completed, the clerk bagged their books and wished them a pleasant day.

Edgar switched off the inner Arrogant Bastard quite easily and dragged Jimmy out the door, swinging the bag of books merrily. For reasons he didn't particularly want to examine, a few minutes in his character always cheered him up. It was probably unhealthy, but what the hell, he was _dead_. A couple Freudian quirks weren't going to hurt him.

"Dude, that was creepy," Jimmy muttered. "Who's the Evil Twin?"

"My secret weapon. As it turns out, the best way to get what you want from jerks is to be an even bigger jerk than them," Edgar replied, smiling. "And it's fun too. I always thought I should have been an actor."

"Hit me like a fuckin' tornado," the younger man grumbled, this time more to himself than Edgar. "An' to think I was worried about you..."

"Me?" Edgar questioned, raising a brow. Jimmy did not worry about people. Period.

Shifty-eyes ensued. "Well, maybe not _worried_... but, y'know, you really don't look like you'd hold up against the Forces of Hell."

"What, stupidity and vitriol?" The older man snorted. "You forget, Jimmy. I was here for a long time before you arrived."

"...Oh, and here I thought it was my bad-ass-ery savin' you from the dark side all this time."

There was a hint of something in his expression that made Edgar wonder. Maybe he really _hadn't_ known? After all, Edgar never bothered to talk about the months before Jimmy's arrival-they had been dull, in comparison, and very little of interest had happened to him. Perhaps, in Jimmy's mind, Edgar hadn't existed until that day in the alley.

"So I'm a damsel in distress, am I?" Edgar replied instead, slipping into that groove of banter that was second nature to him now. "You don't cut much of a heroic figure, I'm sorry to say."

"Fuck you. You aren't much of a damsel yourself. I think it's the nose."

Edgar wasn't sure where they were headed now, since the apartment was in the other direction. It was difficult to concentrate on directions when you were busy being witty, even if you _did_ know where you were going, and it wasn't long before they were well and truly lost. Hell was always growing, sliding along the fault line of this road and the Styx, which wove in and out of the city. The apartments seemed to shift just a little bit every time he visited, and he knew that eventually the whole town would migrate completely, leaving ruins and abandoned buildings in its wake. But for now it just threw off his internal map.

And it meant that he still occasionally got lost after all those months.

"Why do you think it's so empty around here?" Jimmy asked, breaking off their conversation rather suddenly, turning his eyes to the sinister windows above them.

At first, Edgar thought he was talking about Hell in general and he was going to reply with a hypothesis about reincarnation, but then he noticed where Jimmy's eyes were focused. The windows _were_ lifeless, and the streets emptier still. They were alone. Totally alone. An open door ahead shifted slightly in the hot wind.

The creaking street sign read "Lethe", and below that, "Lethe" again.

"Ah..." He looked around nervously. "We seem to have wandered into the abandoned section of Hell. It's funny, I was just thinking about that."

Jimmy scowled. "Creepy as shit. Let's get out of here."

Edgar obliged and they made a turn-about. He wondered where the road led, if you followed it for long enough. Where did it go? To the fifties? To Mexico? Or maybe it was like Pleasantville, looping back on itself endlessly. After all, Earthly laws didn't apply here. Did reality just... end? He spun in mind-boggling circles, wondering at the shape of the universe. Could you reach Earth from here? Would you still be real if you did?

"So..." Jimmy started, following that lapse in the conversation, "have you seen whatshisface? ...Uh, Damon?"

The older man said nothing for a startled moment. "Er... no. I haven't."

"Oh," his companion said. An awkward air seemed to settle around him. "'Cause, y'know, he's dead an' all... an' he oughta be around here somewhere..."

_No, he wouldn't be_. "Damon was a devoted atheist, Jimmy. He'd rather spend eternity decomposing in a box than admit he was wrong. I don't know how the system works, but something tells me he's not here."

"Oh," repeated Jimmy, looking ...relieved?

"Why?" the brunet pressed on, curious now.

"Just... you know," the younger man answered, shifting halfway from awkward to nervous.

"I wouldn't leave just because I found an old friend," Edgar said, hazarding a guess. "I wouldn't, ah, 'ditch' you, you know."

"That's _not_ what I was worried about," Jimmy defended, ignoring Edgar's raised brow. "An' besides, you couldn't ditch me if you wanted to. I'd, like, tie you up in my room or something."

_That _was an interesting image. Edgar shuddered. "Let's stop that train of thought before it leads somewhere unpleasant."

The younger man snorted. "You're just scared I'll say something about rape now."

A breath of laughter burst out of Edgar's lungs. "Ah, yes, kind of."

"Aha!" Jimmy shouted, voice ringing oddly on the empty street. "But here's the problem, my faggy friend. You know what the problem is?"

"What?" Edgar asked, in spite of his better judgement.

Jimmy leant in close. "The problem is, you can't rape the willing!"

And then he dashed off ahead, giggling, with an irate Edgar hot on his heels.

The next night fell as Edgar was buying a soda from the 7/11 nearest the subway. Gunshots outside the window made him look up, and he noticed red steadily spreading across the sky like a bloodstain soaking into a white shirt. Hopefully, whoever was shooting would take his hissy fit the other way, because Edgar didn't particularly like the idea of a bullet to the chest- though he _had_ been through far worse.

Bottle in one hand and popped cap in the other, the murdered man exited the premise. What to do now? There was the theater, if he wanted to take a nap, or he could visit the bagel shop, or find Jimmy, or he could just sit on the street corner and finish his coke. Decisions, decisions.

Of course, it was "night" now, so Jimmy would be at the club... probably feeling up some poor damned soul, the horny bastard.

Edgar scowled.

Well, maybe he _wanted _to talk to Jimmy? How about that? Huh? He could just go... find him, right? Never mind that he was at a club, dancing and/or molesting people, and that Edgar was decidely uncomfortably with venturing into that bar despite having already been there once before. Well, he suppose needed to talk to Jimmy? About something. He'd think of something.

The cynical voice in the back of his head informed him that he was doing that 'thing' again. It was ignored.

His feet led him down a random street with little input from his brain, because for now this part of town was as second nature to him as banter with Jimmy. One street faded into the next, and emerging goths scuttled across his path, occasionally hissing at him. It was realy quite strange, because he at least _looked_ like a member of a fellow subculture, and you would think that someone scorned by society would appreciate someone else in a similar position...

And here he'd though he left High School behind when he died.

The club looked just like he remembered it, windows pulsing with green and pink light and the neon sign short a few key letters. A tiny war played out in his head as the words "Second Ring" registered. How could he go in, knowing what it meant? But, he'd already done that, after all... And really, who would notice him, right? Spine, Edgar!

He pushed through the door, this time careful not to get caught in the undulating mass of humanity. Now, if he was a dead teenager let loose in Hell's loosest nightclub, where would he be...? Edgar spotted him leaning against the bar, talking to a stranger. Picking his way through the edges of the crowd to reach them was a bit of a challenge, but the dead man prevaled.

Jimmy was in the middle of a sentence when he noticed Edgar walking towards him, doubtlessly looking tense and out of sorts. Edgar could see him trail off, lips falling still in the middle of a word. Oh gosh, maybe this was a bad time...

"Hey Jimmy," he said, with a little wave. "Am I interrupting something?"

"...Nooo..." the younger man replied, glancing at his companion. Said companion turned his attention to Edgar with a sort of curiosity that seemed impersonal but not innocent in the slightest. That could be bad...

"Who's this?" the stranger asked, gel-spiked hair catching the strobe light in a dizzying flash.

"Uh, yeah. This is my... uh..."

In that break of a second, it occured to Edgar that he and Jimmy might not have a normal friendship at all.

"...My friend. Um..."

Edgar blinked, waiting for a proper introduction. When none was forth-coming, a thought occured to him for the first time. "Jimmy," he started, eyes a bit wide, "You... you don't actually know my name, do you?"

"Um..." The teen had the decency to look sheepish, at least.

"Oh my god," Edgar groaned, bringing a hand to his forehead. "You... you _idiot_. I can't believe this. My name is _Edgar, _Jimmy. EDGAR. How do you not know this?"

The criminal threw his hands up. "Hey, you're the one who never introduced yourself!"

"Because you ran off and left me in an alley!"

"Well, maybe you should've brought it up, huh?"

The stranger cleared his throat. "Uh, guys? Third wheel here, feeling pretty left out. I'm Cory," he introduced, winking at the off-kilter Edgar.

...Was he the only one who noticed what a sleezeball this guy was? You wouldn't think that there could be a sleezeball in the underground rave/sodomy scene, but there was the proof, standing two feet away and wearing glow-sticks around his wrists. He had narrow, calculating eyes-they made Edgar nervous. Very nervous. And they reminded him of why he always had such confidence issues back on Earth.

"Er, hi, Cory. I'm, yeah, I'm Edgar. Edgar Vargas. Nice to... meet you."

"Mexican?" the stranger inquired, sweeping his eyes over the dead man with a little too much fervor.

"Ah, part Mexican. Part Russian. It's a... strange gene pool, you might say."

Cory shook his head, smiling. "Oh no, in fact it's rather handsome."

"Well, um, thanks..." Edgar managed, fiendishly embarrassed. He felt a burning need to say something along the lines of ''sorry, I don't swing that way!''-forgetting, of course, that he actually _did_. And the only thing that stopped him was the thought of how rude he would sound, and in front of Jimmy's friend too. Oh heavens no, couldn't have that.

Jimmy chose that moment to break in. "OH-kay, so everybody's introduced. Great. F- _Edgar_, did you, like, need something?"

Edgar stopped to think about it. Had he actually needed something? Well, honestly no. He'd only wanted to find Jimmy, and possibly work up the courage to dance with him- not likely, after last time's fiasco, but still a nice thought- and he hadn't counted on Mr. Sleeze over there train-wrecking his ability to improvise.

"Um... I forgot," Edgar answered, shrugging. The look on Jimmy's face clearly read, "And _I'm_ the idiot?"

Cory's eyes darted back and forth between them, and then he seemed to make up his mind about something. "Hey, Jimmy, we're pretty much done here right? You can call me if there's anything else. For now, though... I'd like to dance, if your _friend_ wouldn't mind?"

Why the emphasis on 'friend'? Oh god, could he say no? There didn't seem to be a polite way to do it. A glance at Jimmy, who looked like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure what _to_ say, and then the awkwardness took control of Edgar's brain.

"Er... well, I can't really dance, you see..."

"That's not a 'no'!" Cory crowed, making to pull Edgar into the crowd. Why always him?

Edgar threw a desperate glance in Jimmy's direction. _Come on, if there was ever a time to disparage my dancing skills, NOW WOULD BE GREAT._ But Jimmy only stared, apparently taken by surprise. Edgar mouthed 'help' and tugged at the arms of the man now dragging him away.

Finally, Jimmy seemed to un-pause. He dashed forward and caught Cory by the throat, tight enough that Edgar could just hear a wheezing gasp escape. Jimmy's eyes flashed murder, and his whole body-language had shifted in those few seconds from 'tense' to 'I will rip your fucking face off'. His nails dug into vulnerable throat-flesh.

Edgar remembered, suddenly, that this was a man who had idolized Johnny C.

"What my friend is too _nice_ to say," Jimmy growled, "Is that he doesn't _want_ to dance with you. I, on the other hand, have no problem telling you to _fuck. _Off. Take your cummy hand off his fucking wrist or I will strangle you, right here, right now, so help me God."

Cory let go like Edgar's skin was superheated. He stared, for a moment, at Jimmy, who gradually released his throat. You didn't need to have a major in psychological studies to notice the distinctly unstable look on Jimmy's face, although Edgar did.

"Jimmy..." he started, tentatively reaching out a hand-maybe to touch Jimmy's shoulder, maybe to pull him away before he snapped.

"No, no," Cory cut him off, eyes narrowing now. "Wait a second, kid. What's it to you if I dance with your friend? I mean, yeah I know you're fucking nuts, but there's something else going on here. What do _you_ care if I drag this man off and drop a roofie in his drink?"

"Is that what you were _planning_?" Edgar asked, alarmed. He was, of course, ignored.

"And something else," the stranger went on, with the air of a man on the verge of finishing a puzzle, "You don't _have _friends, Jimmy. People like you don't, and you in particular _definitely_ don't. So why-"

The punch came out of nowhere, blasting Cory in the gut hard enough to knock him down and _keep_ him down for a long time. Jimmy looked like he was going to follow his opponent to the floor, ostensensibly to beat the living daylights out of him, but Edgar caught his arm this time and really did pull him away. The teen struggled in his grasp, but Edgar had a good grip and was actually a bit stronger than him.

The older man managed to get them both to the door, using his last bit of strenth to toss Jimmy out of the club and onto the concrete outside. The door fell to behind him, cutting off the music with a clean 'click'.

Safe? Yes, he thought so.

Jimmy glared up at him, spikes of hair flipped over his eyes, black nails scrabbling at the sidewalk. Edgar waited patiently, leaning against the vibrating window that stretched out on either side of him. Eventually, Jimmy would think of somthing to say.

"That _dick_," he finally hissed, "That shitty little... _fucker_. I oughta rip his goddamn guts out, I oughta cut his dick off and feed it to him like a fucking sausage, see how he likes it, I oughta-"

"Um," Edgar cut in quickly, mildly disturbed, "I know none of us can technically _die_, but I really don't think this line of reasoning is-"

"And you! Why'd you pull me outa there? I could've taken care of him in five minutes, but you had to drag me off! Do you realize what he was saying? About me? About _you_?"

"Well, yes, I got the general idea..."

"There you go again!" he shouted, a nail snapping as he scraped at the sidewalk. "there you go again with your forgiving bullshit. You don't stand up for yourself, you don't get angry! It's not _natural_! You aren't mad at Nny, you aren't mad at that kid, you aren't even mad at this fucker inside! Well, somebody's gonna fight back an' if it's not gonna be you then I'll do it. I'll cut him up so bad the Devil himself won't know how to put him back together!"

"But he didn't... Jimmy, he didn't even say anything that terrible."

"Oh yeah?" The younger man laughed, although there was nothing humorous in his voice. "What about slipping date-rape drugs into your drink?"

"I'm pretty sure he was just kidding about that," Edgar replied, nervously. He hoped that such things weren't standard fare at the Second Ring. "Or, you know, exaggerating."

"Oh, you _would_ think that, wouldn't you? Listen here, _Edgar_, I knew that man a long time before I died, an' he's a helluva lot scarier than I am, just hides it better. Shit, of all the moments for you to walk into the club, it _had_ to be the night I was talking to Cory. I knew, shit, I knew the second you walked in the door..."

Edgar slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, same as Jimmy, with his legs pulled up to his chest. Well this was... an interesting development.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly. He never meant to cause all that hassle.

"Oh fuck," the younger man groaned, "don't you go apologizing. As if you need any more excuse to be... you. Like that. Shit."

They were quiet for a moment, and Edgar craned to get a look in the window above his head. He was curious to see if Cory was still at the fringes or if he'd made his way onto the dance floor.

"Look... Edgar," Jimmy started, seeming to taste the name as he pronounced it, apparently liking the flavor. "I dunno... I think, maybe, I'm sorry? I just get so mad sometimes, I... an', we have history, him an' me..."

The older man held up a hand. "It's alright, Jimmy. He creeped me out too. I just don't want you to go do something you'll regret because you worked yourself into a indecent fury, particualrly not on my behalf."

The criminal- yes, because there was no doubt in Edgar's mind that he was indeed a criminal -took on a peculiar expression, a little bit incredulous, a little bit amused. Words seemed to wait on the curve of his lips, but no sound made its way out. After a moment, he just shook his head and said, "Let's get a drink, yeah? I think I need some booze."

"Well," Edgar smiled, "they say it's unhealthy to drink alone..."

"Alright! C'mon, there's an _actual _bar down the street, an' you got that little blue credit card..."

Edgar smiled wider. Equillibrium settled back into place, and the episode of before was... not forgotten, but moved away from. Of course, a tingle started in Edgar's fingertips when he thought too hard about the wild look on Jimmy's face, or the way his nails had dug into that man's throat...

He shook it off, and went off for a drink.

_"So why were you talking to him anyways?"_

_"Er... he said he could get me a car."_

_..._

_SMACK_

TBC


	12. Words Are Not Enough

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Sometimes words are not enough.  
(Sometimes, the truth is in the action.)

* * *

Edgar awoke slowly, his mind still abstract and slow as if moving through water. Sleep was something he only did in Hell… he must be in Hell, then, although he couldn't remember why. Without opening his eyes, Edgar twitched his fingers, running over a fabric that resembled tweed worn bare by years of use, which seemed ridiculously familiar but he just couldn't place it.

Eyes open. His first impression was light, dusty as if filtered through dirty windows, and then walls and a ceiling, walls painted a familiar androgynous purple…

Oh. He was in Jimmy's apartment then, on his couch more specifically. Now he remembered. Getting caught in Hell at night seemed to trigger his human need for sleep, something that Heaven's residents were apparently above, and this was the second time now that he had fallen asleep on Jimmy's couch after coming back from the Second Ring.

"Sodium laurel sulfate!" announced an irate voice from somewhere behind Edgar.

The dead man sat up and twisted to see over the back of the sofa, greeted by the sight of Jimmy standing at the door of his bedroom—squeezing a tube of toothpaste a lot more violently than necessary.

"I'm sorry," Edgar said, ducking down for a moment to seek out his glasses. "What?"

"Sodium laurel sulfate! It's in every fucking thing in this house! The label on the toothpaste says it, the shampoo says it, the conditioner says it, what the hell kinda chemical is in toothpaste _and_ shampoo? Are they tryin' to poison us all? It's a goddamn conspiracy! What about all the toothpaste I swallowed when I was a kid? Huh? HUH? It's a fuckin' miracle I didn't die before I did with all the conditioner floating around my—"

"Jimmy!" Edgar cut in, "Jimmy, be quiet please!"

Jimmy scowled and pulled his arms in tight across his chest, T-shirt hanging askew from his shoulder in an absurdly Madonna-esque fashion.

"Why," the older man started, "why were you looking at the ingredients list on the toothpaste and shampoo anyways?"

"…I wanted to see what it'd be like to be you," Jimmy deadpanned. "...It was really boring."

Edgar sighed. "I'm glad you think I'm such a fascinating person."

"Not your fault," the younger man shrugged. "Can't all be kick-ass all the time, like me."

"Uh-huh. I draw your attention to a certain incident, involving one giant taco and a broken leg."

"It was a _kick-ass_ broken leg, though."

In spite of himself, Edgar smiled. He ought to sleep over more often, really, if this was the kind of morning he'd have. If you could say one thing for Jimmy, it was that he certainly wasn't boring—or, you could say that he was a degenerate hoodlum with no concept of personal space. Whichever.

A serious thought intruded on the sanguine flow, then, unpleasantly serious for just waking up. But now he was thinking, what if Jimmy _wasn't_ around? What if, for some reason, Jimmy moved on… moved away… got reincarnated… or… stopped talking to Edgar, for whatever reason. What then?

The murdered man got a flash of the scene, saw himself returning to the one-man life that he had lived before Damon and the singular existence he had experienced after his death—only now with the memory of camaraderie, of little joking moments, of awkwardness that was remembered with an irrational fondness. An afterlife without Jimmy, now that the two words seemed almost inseparable.

The flash of sober thought must have shown on his face, because Jimmy uncrossed his arms, tossed the tube somewhere behind him, and pushed off the wall, a curious expression fixed on Edgar. He always thought of the teen as being self-centered, but maybe he wasn't giving Jimmy enough credit… in fact, it was startling how many times his concern had managed to surprise Edgar. All portrayed through a filter of callous cynicism, but even Edgar wasn't oblivious enough to miss it completely.

"Dude," Jimmy said, a little quieter than usual, "what's up? You have some kind of freaky-ass dream?"

Edgar thought about lying, and then figured, why start now? "No," he said, "actually, I was thinking... about life-er, death. You know. The future."

"What about it?"

"Well... what's going to happen to us, I suppose. Haven't you ever thought about it?"

"Fuck the future," Jimmy said, shrugging, "hasn't happened yet anyway. Far as I know, thinking about the future doesn't do much but stress you out."

Edgar thought about that. "But you've got to make plans," he went on, "I mean, what if I dissapeared? What would you do?"

Jimmy's eyes narrowed and he leant down to rest his elbows on the couch between them, their faces suddenly inches apart.

"You planning on leaving?" Jimmy asked, a shrewd tone in his voice now.

"No," came the reply, as Edgar tried not to fall backwards. A hasty retreat would probably not do his case any good, even if they were now centimeters apart and it was kind of making it hard to think.

(Jimmy had dark eyes...)

"Well, if you aren't leaving," the younger man said, slowly, "an' I'm sure not leavin'... what's the point in thinking about it?"

How could he explain himself? It had seemed reasonable to him, but then, he couldn't quite remember why in the face of Jimmy's asymetrical logic... and proximity. One thing was for certain: it was too early in the morning for this shit. And Jimmy was much too close- Edgar could tell far too well that Jimmy had just gotten out of the shower. He could see every drop of water running down the boy's face and neck, tracing contures where Edgar had never (allowed himself to) pay attention before. Something caught in his throat, made it hard to breathe.

In some corner of his mind he realized that he was staring, and that wasn't polite, but Jimmy was staring right back so it evened out right? Not that he could have stopped himself anyway... God he hated it when Jimmy got like this, messed with his head to a disturbing degree... he felt like he _wanted _something, badly, and it reminded him vaguely of the night they had danced- drawing him back through his memories to those sensations that his analytical brain had carefully stored away, the strange dizzy awareness he remembered all too well. And he wished, before he could catch himself, that Jimmy would touch him. Run a fingertip over his jugular in that way that Edgar had always hated, that made him so incredibly nervous, so he could feel his blood pumping against the pressure of Jimmy's skin...

God, something was wrong with him- well, Jimmy said that he was gay, and the kid _was_ probably right. But saying, "okay, I'm gay", is nothing at all like feeling this haze of _sensation_ flooding his veins, searing his nerves. The boy was the burn in his skin, beyond words or definitions. Sometimes words aren't enough.

It wasn't even as if Jimmy was handsome, most people wouldn't think so... but when he was so close, when he was close enough to touch or... or kiss... well, he _was_ _handsome_. The boy had beautiful tapered fingers and dark, dark eyes, and a body thin enough to be fragile, like glass, skin and bone...

(Fucked-up guys. Something about fucked-up guys.)

There was no word for it. He was inevitable and the whole world seemed to stop moving, and it was just Jimmy, just Jimmy and Edgar's burning skin begging to be touched, somehow, and he wouldn't care if it was a kiss or a blow to the face at this point.

It didn't usually last this long. Most of the time, it was a passing sensation- almost a dream remembered -over so quickly that Edgar couldn't question it, couldn't analyze it. But Jimmy, Jimmy wouldn't move now. And he wanted to break the spell as much as he wanted to savor it, because he knew it would never go farther than this and it had never lasted so long before...

And the younger man's fingers, thin and long with black painted nails, brushed Edgar's face, sending chills through his skin. This couldn't go on, this had to end, he had to move, he had to... to...

BAM!

A gunshot exploded somewhere outside the apartment, shattering the air and the bubble of reality. Edgar, wide-eyed and alarmed and all too familiar with the bamboo crack of a firing pistol, jumped up and ran to the door. Somewhere behind him, Jimmy was cursing.

Nothing was visible through the peephole (lucky, since it meant they weren't right outside), so with a glance back at his friend, Edgar unlocked and opened the door just a crack.

"Hey, don't do that-"

"Shh," Edgar hissed back at Jimmy. "I want to know what's going on."

"Shit Edgar, you're gonna get yourself shot-"

"I hope not, but you can only die once."

With Jimmy once again cursing in the background, Edgar slipped out into the hallway and took a look around, eyes on the empty corridor and the suddenly foreboding staircase with its incredibly worn carpet steps. The sounds of moving feet and muttering voices filtered up through there, growing a little louder every second. Just as Edgar was about to step back into the apartment, heads appeared just over the top of the staircase and, catching sight of him, rushed all the way up and into the light.

"Hey you!" the first one shouted, a dark man with squinted eyes. "I recognize you!"

Edgar wisely decided not to ask how he could see anything with that squint.

"Yeah," snarled a second intruder, this one fairly uninteresting except for the very shiny pistol in his hand. "You're that faggot who always hangs out with the skinny-fuck."

"...er, who?"

The third man spoke up now, in a deep voice that held more thought than his companion's. "The guy who killed us. We've seen him walking around town with you, don't think we didn't notice. Who are you, anyways? His partner in crime? His fuck toy?"

"Um…" Edgar backed up, slowly, estimating the distance to the door, "We're just friends. Really."

"Uh-uh," the smarter man grunted, doubtful. "Friends with a psycho like that. Sure. Whatever. Get out of the way, boy, we've got some business with your _friend_."

"Look, Jimmy didn't kill you," Edgar protested, a little annoyed at being called 'boy'. "You've got him confused with somebody else—"

"Confused?" the man with the gun interrupted, "the fuck I'm confused! I'd recognize that piece of shit anywhere—he fed my feet to rats, you know!"

"Ah, see, Jimmy's been dead for quite a while now—"

"Don't go trying to protect him!" the dark man yelled, "He better get his faggot ass out here right now so he can see what it's like to have a hiking boot shoved up _his_ anus! HA! I wore 'em special for the occasion!"

"Now, let's not get violent—"

The smart man shook his head. "I've had just about enough screwing around with you, boy. José, shut him up, would you?"

With a disturbing little smile, the plain man lifted up his pistol and shot, point blank, knocking a hole through Edgar's chest.

"Shit," Edgar said, and then proceeded to fall unconscious.

(_tick_)

The world swam into focus a little more slowly this time, but Edgar remembered immediately where he was. Or, where he should have been. Because weirdly enough, he found himself back on the couch as if he'd never woken up at all.

A hand quickly reached up and fingered a ragged hole in the fabric of his shirt—great, now he really had to go shopping again—sticky with congealing blood. The skin underneath was as smooth and browned as it had ever been, and he idly wondered if the bullet was still lodged in his body somewhere.

"Jimmy?" he called out, "Jimmy, are you there?"

"Yeah," the boy shouted back, and his head appeared in the doorway of the kitchenette. "Hold up."

After a couple seconds of metal clanging on metal, he walked back into the living room with a bowl of macaroni in hand. He didn't _look _like he'd been in a fight…

"What happened?" Edgar queried, a little puzzled.

"Told y' you were gonna get shot," the younger man scowled. "I dragged your stupid body back in here after they left."

Edgar had the weirdest image of Jimmy grabbing his hand and pulling his passed-out self into the apartment like the proverbial sack of potatoes, cursing like a sailor the whole way.

"Thanks. Are you okay?"

"Me?" the boy laughed, "I'm just peachy. See, _I'm_ smart enough to run when the mob comes a callin'… though I do 'preciate you thinking about me."

_Coward_, Edgar thought a little sourly, _you street rat little coward_. But the irritation was fleeting, and he was more interested in playing the event over in his head. There was something that was just a little too random about that, something that he was missing or that he was sensing ahead, maybe.

"They thought you were Johnny," Edgar mused, almost to himself. "I guess I can see how they might, I mean, all of you people must look alike to them."

"_You people_?" Jimmy demanded. "What do you mean, 'you people'?"

Edgar shrugged. "You and Johnny. Goths. Skinny fags. Whatever. You people."

Jimmy glared at him for a minute before giggling in that eerie way of his. "Me 'n Johnny, huh?" He tossed himself over the back of the couch and landed on top of his friend, rather heavily. "Shit, what a morning."

"Indeed," Edgar wheezed, gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of him.

And the strange moment of before was lost in the haze of events.

-0-

As Edgar had once noted, there were only two decent restaurants in Hell. One was a taco place, and the other was a bagel shop.

Thought he didn't need to eat, there was something pleasantly distracting about the taste and weight of food, and with an eternity to kill, Edgar had become quite close to the staff of both places. Always be on good terms with your server, went Edgar's motto, since they're the ones handling your food.

The dead man was on better terms with the bagel place than the Taco Hell—he'd been in there with Jimmy a few too many times for the servers to be comfortable, and they gave him the weirdest half-pity-half-suspicion kind of look. But then, you had to count your blessings in the underworld, and anyone that didn't insult or scream at you was a major blessing.

So with the sky a crisp white and the air hotter than usual, Edgar once again tumbled into the Bagel Shop with his usual (lack of) grace, nodded to a patron jealously guarding his brunch in the dark corner, and placed an order. The new cashier had actually been one of his students, during the first year he'd taught a psychology course, and the solid 'B' he'd handed out seemed to have earned him an unusual modicum of respect. He smiled at the teen- forever a teen, now- and the kid kind of smiled back, the expression looking rusty from disuse.

"How's the afterlife treating you?" he asked, taking the paper bag off the counter. He didn't understand why they wrapped his food in a paper bag if he was just going to unwrap it in a couple minutes, but hey, if it made them happy then he was't going to complain.

"Like Hell," the cashier shrugged. "Christ, and I thought I had it bad off _before _the accident."

"It'll certainly put things in perspective," Edgar agreed, stepping to the side just in case someone else wanted to place an order. "So how's your girlfriend?"

The kid sighed. "She's not the same. Nothing's the same. She keeps yelling at me for hitting her every time we talk. I'm scared I'm gonna start _thinking_ next."

"Maybe you should?" Edgar suggested, patiently. "Clearly, you won't be happy till you and… what was her name? Irene? Till you and Irene settle things out."

"Yeah, but why should I have to do what she wants? Why can't _she_ do what _I_ want?"

Edgar frowned and put his elbows on the counter, effectively putting himself right in the kid's personal bubble—a trick he'd learned from Jimmy, of course.

"Let me ask you a serious question," he said. "Do you love her?"

Looking uncomfortably, he answered, "Well… yeah. I do. Just don't tell her I said that, okay?"

"Then allow me to let you in on a secret. Love is about taking care of another person. It's about sometimes putting what they want before what you want. That's what love is. It's wanting to be around someone forever and wanting them to be happy. Do you want her to be happy?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to be with her forever?"

"…Maybe?"

"Good enough. Then you're going to have to think about what she wants. You can't keep someone with you by threatening them or chaining them to the bed—that's a metaphor, by the way, please don't tell me you've tried that—and you certainly can't do it by _hitting _them. You have to… compromise."

"No shit?"

Edgar broke into a smile and replied, "No shit."

"You really think that'll work? She won't just run off?"

"Yes," the older man answered, "I think so. I'm not saying it'll be easy, but I know you can do it. Be aware, okay?"

The teen squinted in that _what-you-talkin'-'bout_ kind of way. "Aware?"

"Like, when you're about to yell or punch something, stop yourself. Be aware of what you're doing."

"Oh…" the cashier sighed, "Alright. I can probably do that."

"No, I know you can."

The kid smiled and made a shooing motion. "You're crowding the register Mr. Vargas. Take your bagel and get out."

"Aye aye captain," his teacher grinned, snatching up the white paper bag and heading for the door. "Remember what I said!" he called over his shoulder.

The glass door falling to cut off any reply. Edgar made his way down the street with his bagel disappearing one bite a time, giving himself something of a pat on the back.

He believed, down to the core of his being, that human beings were basically good. Temperaments and events and environments conspired against them, but underneath all that, anyone could be saved… with enough effort.

The trouble with psychologist, he figured, was that they had a tendency to talk in science terms, the same way religious people have a tendency to preach. But preaching just makes people angry, and science just makes people confused. You have to put things in perspective for whoever you're talking to—you have to give them reasons that actually makes sense. Right and wrong never changed a person's mind, but "it'll put tar into your lung tissue" or "she'll hate your guts" tend to do the job nicely.

Once upon a time, Damon had asked him why he spent so much time with the losers and the juvenile delinquents, as if the normal, nice people somehow weren't good enough. Edgar had just smiled and said, "A doctor does not visit the healthy. A doctor visits the sick." And Damon had rolled his eyes because unlike a lot of Christians he knew, the boy had actually read the bible and got the joke.

A sad pang ran through Edgar's chest. Those days seemed a very long time ago… summer and fall, forever blockaded by the winter… But he shook the thoughts out of his head with practiced ease.

He had the strangest feeling that he was being watched. At moments like these, he cursed his lack of peripheral vision as a male, because the ability would really have come in handy. He also cursed the fact that shadows don't exist in Hell… imaginary light source and all that.

So instead, he turned a corner and waited just on the other side, pretending to tie his shoe. It was perfectly believable, too. His shoe _had_ been untied.

A young man walked around the corner, and stopped short the moment he noticed Edgar. A dumb fish mouth and a nervous flick of the eyes told the dead man everything he needed to know.

"Hello," he said, smiling faintly. He finished the knot and stood, patting the poor jerk on the shoulder as he passed. "Next time you're stalking someone, act a little more casual."

And then he went on along his way.

-0-

Night was falling, but not quite as usual. Normally, Al popped over to a different section of the underworld during the 'night'—Edgar had asked him where, once, and the only thing Al had been able to say for sure was that they spoke Russian.

Tonight though, as the sky turned dark like a white shirt soaking up blood, the eye remained. Edgar stood under the eave of an abandoned building at the edge of the inhabited town, drinking from a bottle of wine. It was light stuff, but it had been near to free and smelled lovely, so he had splurged. He'd thought of saving it and offering some to Jimmy, but something told him that wine wasn't really the boy's cup of alcoholic beverage.

But when the Eye in the Sky burst into spontaneous flames, Edgar had to question exactly what _kind_ of wine he'd been drinking.

… Just in case, he'd better get back into the inhabited bit of the city. It wasn't safer, exactly, but at least he'd know if he was hallucinating or not.

As he returned back between the looming cityscape, he couldn't help but glance back at the fiery thing, a strange facsimile of a true sun, and wonder if it was painful. It didn't look fun... and it also sounded a bit familiar. He wasn't drunk- or even buzzed, actually- but he simply could not remember what it reminded him of, no matter how he wracked his brain.

Up ahead was a liquor store that he'd found Jimmy in more than a few times- that boy could _drink_, no doubt about it. Edgar had a feeling that he'd find more than drinks inside, so he popped in for a quick check. Somehow, he could always find Jimmy when he wanted to... and he could always end up _found _when he didn't want to be. It was rather inevitable, the way they were constantly running into each other. Handy too, since niether of them had any actual schedule and if they weren't so good at stumbling across one another, they might never meet again.

"Ah," he sighed, spotting a head of spiky black hair by the cooler. He dashed over silently, managing to get right up behind the teen, and tapped him one the shoulder.

"I didn't steal it! She was my sister! I swear I used a condom!"

"Er..." Edgar grabbed his shoulder and spun the boy around. "Hi. What was that about a condom?"

Jimmy relaxed immediately. "Oh, Edgar. It's you. Uh, I was just covering all my bases, that's all."

Though he didn't like the idea of Jimmy having sex at all, it was a funny thing to scream so Edgar grinned anyways. "So... Al just caught fire. Got any idea what that means?"

Jimmy squinted at him. "You mean your creepy eye friend?"

"Yeah."

"Um... give me a second," Jimmy muttered, holding up a finger. He reached inside the cooler and pulled out a beer, took a drink and said, "Wasn't it on that invitation we found? Something about, the eye shall blaze yadda yadda party yadda middle English yadda the Devil's house?"

"Oh! You know, I think you're right."

They headed for the door, and Edgar noticed that there wasn't anyone at the counter. He was about to stop and wait for the salesman to reappear, but Jimmy kept going without him.

"Aren't you going to pay for that?" Edgar asked, already knowing the answer.

"No," Jimmy called back, holding the door open now. "Aren't you coming?"

Edgar sighed and went along, followed through the door and Jimmy let it fall closed behind them.

"...So," the younger man started, "You're not gonna make me stay behind and pay anyway?"

Edgar looked at him sideways. "Do you want me to?"

For a moment, Jimmy looked like he wasn't sure. "...No. I just... you don't like it when I shoplift. Don't you want, like, fix me?"

Edgar shook his head. "Fix you? Jimmy, if I didn't like you the way you are, I wouldn't spend so much time with you. You're... you. And I'd definitely like it if you stopped stealing, but I can't _make _you do anything. You have to do it on your own."

Jimmy blinked. "Oh."

"So anyways, Al is on fire. This means there's a party, apparently?"

"At the Devil's house."

They walked down the street, glancing over their shoulders occasionally, heading nowhere in particular. Edgar liked these moments, and he got the feeling that Jimmy liked them too, otherwise he would have said something. The kid wasn't exactly quiet about those kinds of things: boredom, annoyance, hatred... in fact, you couldn't shut him up if you tried.

"You know, I'd rather like to see Pandemonium. And I haven't been to a real party since I was in college."

"I'd like some free booze myself," Jimmy grinned, then glanced sideways at his companion, "and a chance to get laid."

Edgar snorted. "For your sake, I hope you _do_ use a condom." But if he caught Jimmy wandering of with any pretty girls (pretty boys too), he was going to end that faster than you could say "buzz kill". After all, she ought to know what she was getting into, right? And it had nothing to do with Edgar generally disliking the idea of Jimmy sleeping with anyone, not at all.

"Worried about my safety, you little fag? That's so cute."

"Worried about the poor girl, you can rot for all I care."

"Oh, I'm hurt, really. An' here I was going to take you along with me."

Edgar stopped, confused. "You were going to take _me_?"

"Well, duh. Relax, we're still goin' together, I was just kidding. Lighten up, man."

The older man said nothing, pondering the meaning of that statement. Was that like a date? Okay, no, that's stupid. But he did very much like the fact that Jimmy assumed they were going together... and the fact that he wasn't inviting a real date along, because damn that would be awkward. And if Jimmy got drunk enough, maybe they could dance and hopefully Jimmy wouldn't remember in the morning. He didn't fancy that being used against him in the future.

"So which way to Pandemonium?" Jimmy went on, casting a nervous glance back at the street behind them.

"Er... East, I think. It said, 'currently located east of each city'... funny to think of a castle that just migrates around..."

Jimmy glanced over to a small demon standing at a bus stop, the little round kind with the pitchfork tails. "Yeah, funny."

With no idea which way was East and which was West, they picked a direction at random and walked that way. They talked as they went, relating events of the day and discussing philosophy- despite having no formal training, if you could get Jimmy interested in the topic he turned out to have a surprisingly analytic mind. They often fell into the form of a debate, Edgar explaining the tenets of some belief, Jimmy playing Devil's Advocate to undermine them. It had been particularly interesting when they had discussed Humanism, Edgar's personal philosophy- he had forgone to mention that it was his own belief, and he ended up defending himself against Jimmy's onslaught from a third person objective. It had been illuminating.

He had told the younger man at the end of their debate, actually, and the taken-aback look on Jimmy's face had been amusing. On occasion, Edgar had the strangest feeling that he was _domesticating _the thief, as if the immeasurable period of their friendship had smoothed rough edges somehow. He had no idea why, but he remembered Jimmy when they'd first met- Jimmy who never held doors open, or thought twice about dressing Edgar down, or talked philosophy. Something subtle had changed along the way. The teen gave him a knife the other day, he remembered, saying something about self-protection and Edgar being a perfect target for something... in truth, the older man had been a bit too surprised to listen.

As they walked, Edgar brushed the pocket where he had the knife stashed. It was special to him, and he kept it on him at all times now, even though he knew absolutely nothing about using weapons. It wasn't about safety... at least, not that kind. He liked to remember the feeling it had left him with, that surprised-elated jolt. If only Edgar could recall exactly what Jimmy had said when he put it in his hand.

Slowly, the buildings grew fewer and farther between, until they found themselves at an expanse of chain link fence. On the other side lay a field of fire- burning rock, more specifically, probably sulfur and brimstone by the smell-and beyond that, a palace in bricks of ebony and garnet.

The men glanced at each other.

"Is he for real?" Jimmy muttered, squinting up at the hulking monster of a palace.

"It is a little dramatic," Edgar agreed, looking for a gate.

There was one off to the right, and Edgar pulled Jimmy along towards it. It sprouted from the fence in freakish juxtaposition- carved granite skulls with glowing eye sockets surrounded by grade A ghetto chain link. The dead man sighed.

They ventured under the frame and down the path, wary of the hellfire on either side. For his part, Edgar was paranoid about tripping over one of those stones and rolling into the lawn where his soul would probably roast for all eternity. Despite the fear, he couldn't help but feel a bit fond of the whole thing. It was so like Hell.

The great door loomed up over them as they approached, perfectly medieval and about five human men high. Jimmy whistled.

It swung open as they came close enough to touch, and out stepped the ugliest being Edgar had ever seen. It wasn't that there was anything in particular wrong with him, he was simply... hideous, and his name tag read 'Sin'.

"Welcome to the castle Pandemonium," Sin intoned. "The Master awaits all guest in the main ballroom. Follow the signs."

Edgar ducked inside, followed by Jimmy, and they ventured down the ornate hall. Chinese rugs muffled the fall of their feet, and Edgar had to stop Jimmy from stealing a decoration more than once. Finally, Edgar slapped his hands away and kicked the latest table back down the hall, leaving Jimmy caught between chasing after it and following his companion.

"He's not gonna miss one stuffed dodo bird, Edgar!" the boy called after him. After a moment of agonizing decision, he rushed off after Edgar's retreating form.

Edgar kept him away from the decorations religiously, suspecting that something horrible would happen if he tried to snatch one of those vases- the charred body they found tucked neatly under one table supported his theory pretty well. And, as it turned out, the signs that Sin mentioned were pretty obvious. It was almost insulting, until you took into account the relative intelligence of the Damned.

"Neon arrows? Is he _serious_?"

"They are a bit unorthodox..."

"It looks like fuckin' Las Vegas in here!"

"Yes, well..."

They did, however, lead to the main ballroom. Or so the large glowing green sign told them. Edgar took a moment to examine his clothing- oh, maybe he should have changed, jeans and a t-shirt didn't exactly scream 'ballroom atire'- and then Jimmy's, and then to generally freak out at the last minute like he always did. Jimmy was nice enough to hit him upside the head, and then, with one last breath, they pushed open the door.

"Ah," hummed a familiar dark voice, "Look who has come to join the party! _Do _come in, Edgar, Mmy. It's a pleasure to see you again."

TBC


	13. The Rise and Fall

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

Satan looked at God, burning with distaste,

glared down at the paradise, and murmured: "What a waste."

_AN: http:// www. youtube .com/ watch?v=qrOeGCJdZe4&feature=related_

* * *

"Ah," hummed a familiar dark voice, "Look who has come to join the party! _Do _come in, Edgar, Mmy. It's a pleasure to see you again."

Edgar looked up at the grinning face of Satan, resplendent in glowing crimson robes which appeared to be lit by hellfire, and said, "Hello, Señor Diablo."

Beyond the looming figure the ballroom was visible, an endless chamber of gothic architecture that was lovely, but seemed perhaps more suited to a funeral than a dance. Spinning couples covered the floor, more than he could count, women dressed in delicate gowns that swept the floor, men in jackets Edgar had never seen outside of books. Peering closer, he looked for… yes, there… every one of them wearing masks. One couple whirled past him and he got a good look at the ensemble… very nineteenth century.

Señor Diablo noticed his appraising stare and chuckled. "One of my favorite centuries, actually. The industrial revolution, the imperialist regimen, the ever widening gaps between one man and the next—Oh for the good old days when an orphan could lose a hand working with a sewing machine! Not to mention the corsets! What delightful implements of torture they were, and such a catalyst for lust. Oh yes, my people outdid themselves on the eighteen-hundreds."

Edgar looked back at the crowd. "You're not telling me every citizen of Hell just happened to have ballroom attire from the last century tucked in the back of their closets?"

"Don't be silly, my dear man. It's a spell, and a rather elementary one at that… most of them showed up in all sorts of ridiculous things, jeans, cocktail dresses, tuxedos… rather like yourselves, eh?"

Edgar and Jimmy looked back at each other.

"I am _not_ wearing a dress," the younger man warned, crossing his arms.

When the devil turned his attention to Edgar, the older man squeaked, "Me neither!"

"Have it your way," Satan replied, rolling his eyes. "I shall satisfy whatever shreds of masculinity you have managed to retain. Just as well, I suppose, as you would both look absolutely hideous in ladies' garb."

And just like that, the jeans and t-shirt had become a black velveteen jacket with a pocket watch (Oh, he'd always secretly wanted one of those!) and there was a mask in his hand, waiting to be secured around his face.

"Neat," Jimmy crowed, inspecting his new, complementary threads.

"Well I can't have you not matching," Señor Diablo defended, hardly one to be accused of a good deed. "And besides, you rather are my favorite guests."

Alarm bells went off in Edgar's head, and he sent a suspicious look the devil's way. "Why?"

Satan mumbled something about the "prime directive" and slunk aside. "Just enjoy the evening, Mr. Vargas. I know you will."

Edgar frowned as the lord of Hell dissipated into the shadows. "I hate it when he disappears like that."

Jimmy shrugged. "He's the Devil. He's supposed to be a jackass." Then the boy turned to the mask in his hands, flipping it over to examine the intricate detail—gold filigree in the pattern of tiny scales, and twisted, short horns from the temples. "Does it look kinda… reptile-ish to you?"

"Reptilian. And yes, it does actually. Most masks are inspired by animals, you know. Perhaps a dragon?"

"Sweet," the younger man said. "What's yours?"

In truth, Edgar was a bit hesitant to check. If it looked absurd, as it probably would, he'd still have to wear it and he didn't much like that idea. He could look stupid enough on the dance floor without stupid masks to help. Still, though, he turned it over and examined it.

"Nice feathers," Jimmy snorted, examining the patterns painted around the eyes, "But where's the beak?"

"Not here, obviously," Edgar replied, a little relieved, "In fact, if it weren't for the feathers, it'd just be a white mask."

"Boring!" the younger man cried, slapping on his own disguise. After a moment, Edgar followed suit.

"Well," Edgar mused, tying the ribbon at the back of his head, "I have no idea how to dance like that… and I'd bet my foldout chair that you don't either." He was pleased to find that the mask held his glasses in place.

"Can you really see _me_ taking ballroom dancing lessons?"

"Didn't think so. Anyways, I think it's part of the spell, but if I'm wrong, I really don't like the idea of getting out there with some strange girl and then having no idea what to do. Unlike you, I don't enjoy looking like a complete idiot—"

"You're just jealous, Edgar."

"—So I think that we had both better start the night dancing with each other. Less embarrassment if somebody screws up."

"Good for me," the younger man shrugged, a grin tugging the corner of his lips. "C'mon, let's see what we're workin' with."

Jimmy grabbed his hand, as usual—as if Edgar wouldn't have followed him anyway—and pushed through the press of people. Looking up as they went, Edgar found himself dazed by the towering arches, the stone gargoyles peering over the edges of the ceiling… the room around him had no walls, only pillars and arches and that was silly because he'd just come in through the door, but there was no door in sight.

By the time Jimmy pulled them to a stop, Edgar's vision was spinning and he was feeling just a little bit awed. He looked back to Jimmy, who was taking his other hand with supreme concentration, dark eyes catching what little light filtered in through his mask.

"Who's gonna lead?" Jimmy asked, hands still on Edgar's hands.

"Can't we both?" Edgar replied, his mind filled with stone carvings and stained glass.

"Uh… I don't think it works like that."

"Alright. Then, you can lead."

With a nod, Jimmy slid one hand around his companion's waist—not quite the same as a woman's hips, but worked despite it—and murmured, "We're gonna look so stupid…"

Edgar grinned at that. He moved his other hand, still conjoined with Jimmy's, away from them, the way he'd seen the other couples stand. "Move."

Jimmy's eyes went a little wide, but he did take a step back—which Edgar followed, and another step, and then there was a pattern to it, a rhythm was not so unfamiliar as he had expected, and then it only felt natural to turn, spin, step again…

Edgar noticed, for the first time, violins and drums in the background—strange, because he hadn't been aware of the music when they started, but it must have been there—playing a piece he'd never heard before. The twirling, bowing mulitude moved with the same sound perfectly, but there was nothing classical about it. How had he missed that? The drum beats boomed through his frame, perfectly matched to the movements of the dance, all encompassing.

Jimmy's hand on his was beginning to feel like fire, scorching his fingertips and sending boiling blood back through his veins. The arm around his waist, the hand over his spine the same—burning, boiling, a rush of blood that was mostly air evaporated by the heat. The feeling. The Feeling was back.

Jimmy cleaned up nicely, he decided, eyeing his partner. His spiky hair managed to look dashing as it fell over that mask, and the jacket complemented his skinny frame. Edgar was beginning to wonder about the Devil's motives…

"This is weird," Jimmy whispered, leaning in so that his lips almost touched Edgar's ear. The older man tried not to shiver.

_What, you think so too?_

"Usually," the theif went on, "you play the man. I'm not used to it."

"…You aren't even going to acknowledge how strange that sounded?"

The younger man grinned beneath his mask as the dance took another spin, and responded, "What're you sayin'? I was just talking about the way you tend to _dominate_ me, is all."

Edgar gave him a _very_ dubious look. "When we dance," he replied. You could never know how much of it was weirdness and how much was just Jimmy--but that was pushing it, even for Edgar' level of naïveté…

Jimmy suddenly stopped in the middle of the floor, the countless swirling partners around them turning the floor into a kaleidoscope of silk and satin. Still grinning, the younger man released his hand and took a step back, and Edgar noticed, randomly as he tended to, that those lovely, distinctive boots were still on Jimmy's feet.

"You lead," Jimmy ordered, and it was amusingly ironic when you thought about it like that. The hand around Edgar's waist disappeared and Jimmy stood in the middle of the floor, waiting.

The older man glanced down at himself for just a moment, reminding himself that he actually _did_ have a body and a will that would move it. He couldn't quite make himself touch Jimmy, as if there was an invisible line that he had been toeing all along and he just couldn't quite cross it. But Jimmy tilted his head, just so, and then, well, and then it didn't seem very nice to leave him _hanging_…

Fingers intertwined with fingers, Edgar's hand finding the small of his partner's back, the ridges and curvature of the spine pressing into him even through the jacket. And then, with a step, the dance resumed.

Edgar glanced around at the other couples, seeing all variations of the same two expressions. All men with pleased, confident, sometimes roguish smiles—all women with shy, trusting, sometimes coquettish faces. Really, they all looked the same. He recognized them all from the covers of a hundred cheap, confiscated romance novels, the kind whose plots were all identical, whose characters spoke the same lines in the same flat way, and whose "eternal love" usually consisted of "feeling something" whenever the man walks into the room. More than once, he was sad to say, he had lectured a girl with what he dubbed a "true love complex", explaining to her that storybook romances had no substance, no binding spark, no dimension…

He looked at Jimmy now, somehow pleased to see that his expression was nothing like the women's around them… and he knew his own was nothing like the men's. Jimmy was almost smirking, his movements proving that he could turn even a waltz into something lewd, and they both knew that he could never be called shy, any more than he could be called trusting. Though it might be nice if he would trust Edgar just a _little_ more often.

And the dance went on. There seemed to be no passing of time, every moment existing alone with itself as if the past was a thought and the future a passing fancy, unreal. It made Edgar suspicious, actually—wasn't this a ball in Hell? Wasn't this the Devil's shindig? He should really not be enjoying himself so much… and these other people should _definitely _not be so happy. They should be surly or over-passionate or uncoordinated.

"Questions, Mr. Vargas?"

Edgar looked to his left, startled, only to find Señor Diablo dipping a woman—a pretty blond woman with a large silver cross around her neck. She smiled at him. He blinked at her.

"Er, yes," the human replied, adjusting his hand around Jimmy's waist. Suddenly, this felt just a little bit strange. "Why is everyone so… happy?"

The Devil grinned hugely, the expression dreadful on his skull-like face. "You might have noticed how all the people appear rather dumb also."

Edgar nodded.

"That's my little party favor. Tonight, for the celebration of my finest work, I have returned them all to the paradise that was lost. What you see around you are a hundred faces of Adam and Eve, before the tree of wisdom. All simple, all without true thought, all unaware that they posses free will. Living archetypes, if you will."

"It was very nice of Juan," the pretty blond woman said, smiling up at Satan. "It took some arguing—oh, you should have heard him debating it with the Lord, if was quite a spectacle—but just look at them! They look so unhappy most of the time, it's nice to see them more comfortable…"

Jimmy snorted beside him. "Looks more like being doped up to me."

"He has a point," Edgar said, turning as the music commanded. "They really don't seem to have any sentient thoughts at all."

Señor Diablo just kept grinning. "It amuses me that you think they ever did."

Then the crowd separated them, and Jimmy and Edgar were once again amongst a sea of Adams and Eves, all dressed in nineteenth century high-fashion, spinning along to bizarre music from the end of the twentieth century.

"That was… weird." Edgar realized that he had stopped moving.

"Yeah. Wanna get a drink?" Jimmy seemed to realize the same thing.

"That… sounds like a good idea." They both took a step away.

The punch table seemed to find _them_, spread out between two of the great stone pillars and covered from end to end with various bottles and cups. Edgar examined a few, surprised to see everything from vodka to mead in attendance. There looked like some kind of milk-beer a couple spaces away, but he was kind of scared to touch it.

"Shit, that's awesome!" Jimmy cried, dashing over to what looked like a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Snatching himself a bottle of wine (1864, private vineyard), Edgar asked, "What is it?"

Jimmy held up a bottle and shook it enthusiastically, "You can't find this shit _anywhere_!"

"Your cup runneth over," Edgar replied, taking a good swig of some very old wine.

"Uh…" the younger man looked at him, surprised for once. "You, like, a closet alcoholic or something?"

Edgar laughed. "No. Well, I do drink alone, so maybe I am? But it's a party, Jimmy, and 1864 was a good year."

"Être juste," agreed a voice from under the table.

Jimmy and Edgar exchanged a look, and, a little hesitant, lifted up the tablecloth to peer underneath. A very short man waved at them, wearing a large, blue hat and holding a half-empty bottle of vodka. Edgar blinked at him, trying to figure out why the hat looked so familiar.

"I once 'ad a bottle of burgundy de 1750," the drunk little man went on, "Magnifique. Très bon année. See if there is any up top, mon ami?"

"…Napoleon?"

The small dictator squinted at him. "Oui."

Edgar looked to his… er… not-date, then back to the diminutive dictator. "Didn't you die in about 1820?"

"Si."

Now he was confused. "But nobody stays in Hell for that long! They all get reincarnated… I assume."

"Non. I am 'ere, still. Too short, they tell me. Bah! Diable faisait stupide. Toujours… il va stupide. Je suis ici depuis des siècles."

"I don't speak French, midget," Jimmy growled—and Edgar noticed that it had a really different effect with that mask covering his face. Curious.

"Don't be rude, Jimmy. He's drunk. Can you speak Spanish when you're drunk?"

"I can't really speak Spanish anymore, at all."

"So, you admit that Napoleon here speaks two and a half languages more than you."

"Two and a half?"

"Yes. He speaks French, Italian and English."

While Jimmy was trying to figure out what exactly that meant, Edgar leaned back down to the dead emperor under the table. "Maybe you should come out from under there… it's not really safe. Hm. You know, you don't look an inch over four feet tall. I swear I read somewhere that Napoleon was five foot five…"

Napoleon rolled out from under the drink table. "I 'ave been 'ere too long. After a while, I lose all sorts of things… 'eight, one thing. Memory, another. Tell me, in life, I was poisoned, oui?"

"I seem to remember it was stomach cancer…"

Napoleon frowned. "Perhaps it was."

As much as he wanted to ask about the height again, something told Edgar he wasn't going to get a straight answer. It just didn't work like that. Death, stripping a person of their height and memories… well, what made up a dead person anyway? Soul? Memories? There was no way of knowing, but he thought that maybe this was a hint, a sign that nothing was as concrete as it appeared.

Jimmy elbowed him. "Hey. Stop philoso… philopho… making shit up. Drink your wine, Edgar. You always get so fucking smart… you got no business thinking at a good bash."

More curious than anything else, Edgar asked, "You'd say this is a good party?"

Jimmy giggled, and it was as disturbing as ever. "They got my beer, don't they?"

It was worth a smile, Edgar supposed. He took another gulp of wine, realizing that there was still probably a good dosage of alcohol swimming through his veins from the bottle a few hours before, and grabbed Jimmy's empty hand. "May I have this dance?"

The younger man glanced at his friend then finished off his own drink. "Y'know what?" he said, as he tossed the bottled somewhere over his shoulder-- "I like you when you're tipsy."

"Not tipsy," Edgar corrected, wrapping an arm around Jimmy's waist. "Buzzed? Perhaps."

And then they were back out on the ballroom floor, weaving between couples, and Edgar was trying not to think too hard about what he was doing or feeling right then. It was true, you weren't supposed to think to hard in these situations, and he'd promised himself he was going to stop overanalyzing everything between them—plus, besides, a lot of Edgar's thoughts were too contradictory and random for analysis anyways.

The dance lasted longer, this time—or at least he thought so, though it was hard to tell. Eventually the tide took them into strange places on the dance floor. Suddenly, there was a wall in sight—some ways in the distance, but a surreal sight in the endless ballroom. The dance pulled him into a complex movement, his right hand slipping out of Jimmy's and onto the boy's waist—electric shock—and they dipped, spun, and then Jimmy's face was an inch from his.

The teen's dark eyes glittered behind the mask. "Never wanted to dance," he whispered, "with nobody but you…"

He wasn't sure he had even heard it, as if he might have dreamed it between the spinning room and the rapid beating of his heart. And it seemed to slip away, like it was caught in the currents of air swirling behind them.

The darkness, then, growing as they came closer to the wall, broke between them and pulled Jimmy away, into a new dance with a pretty blond woman whose silver cross gleamed across her chest. And Edgar was turned to face a new partner also, one so much taller than he, and whose grinning face was just a little too responsive to be a mask.

_I'm dancing with the devil_, he thought to himself, stunned.

"I hope you don't mind," Señor Diablo said, "but it was time to change partners. And I did so enjoy breaking up your little moment."

Edgar scowled, thoroughly creeped out by the feeling of claws on his back. "Yes, well, can I have him back, please?"

"Of course, my dear man. Tonight, you may have any temptation you should choose. And he is a handsome one, isn't he?"

"I'm not entirely certain what you're talking about," Edgar lied. Well, who was the devil to pry into his personal business?

"Oh, but I know you are," Satan replied, grin stretching wider. "You're right, he _does_ clean up well. It's a shame you can't clean a person's insides the way you can their outsides."

The human gave him a suspicious look. "Yes, I suppose it is. If you're referring to his… murders… I already know about them."

"Oh do you?" the devil laughed. "How? _He_ hasn't told you. Mr. Vargas, you are an excellent guesser, but you are guessing nonetheless. What has he told you about his past? What has he told you about his guilt? His shame? He has it, you must have noticed—Oh yes, I can see you have. But what do you _know?"_

The darkness was thicker here, the wall only ten feet or so away, close enough that Edgar could make out the intricate shapes of the stone. The nearest couple was ten feet in the other direction.

"He'll tell me whenever he's ready," Edgar replied, eyes narrowed. "We've got eternity, and he's my friend. He'll tell me when he's ready, and not a minute before."

"And what will you do when you know?" Satan whispered, leaning down. "What will you do when he shows you all the dirty little places in his past? Do you think it'll be the same? Are you so certain that you can handle it? He's a bad man, Edgar, bad to the very bone."

"Nobody's totally evil," Edgar argued, "and I refuse to believe that I'd ever abandon a friend. That's what you think I'd do, isn't it? You're just certain that when he tells me, I'll—"

"I _know_ humans, my dear Edgar. I know how every sick little cog in your mind turns. There really is no such thing as a good person, or a loyal person—what did your _wonderful_ friend say?" The being smiled coldly. "There's no such thing as a good Samaritan."

"Well why the hell not?" Edgar demanded, losing his temper.

"Because you are _human_, Edgar! And no matter how many chances humanity gets, they're still a worthless, greedy lot. Fools, all of you. And you, my dear man, are the greatest fool of all! When the moment comes, all your beautiful promises will come crashing around you."

"And you think you know that for sure?"

"I don't think. I _do_ know. And if ever the times come that you have to sacrifice something of yourself, you will let him down. Trust me," Satan looked down at him, eyes narrow slits, "I'm an angel."

And then the darkness receded, and Señor Diablo released him, catching the hand of that pretty blond woman as he spun away and left Jimmy in his place. The younger man's face was a shade pale, what could be seen of it, and far more serious than Edgar had left him.

"He talk to you too?" Jimmy asked, eyes trained on the blond woman fading into the crowd.

"Mhm."

"Are you as uncomfortable as I am?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

"Good. Didn't want to be alone."

Sighing, Edgar reached out and grabbed his companion's hand, dragging him back into position. There was no use pondering the meaning of Señor Diablo's words—or his pretty date's—and the only thing left to do was to dance. He refused to let vague predictions kill his night--despite it all, he was still buzzing with a bottle of wine and then some, still burning somewhere in his veins. Why not? And besides, Jimmy didn't seem to want to let him go.

They spun, almost alone in the darkness, and the moments of before receded, fizzled away into the beat and the violins and the beat of the dance… and, regardless of the warnings, he could already feel the buzz of contact where his skin met Jimmy's. Despite the tinge of worry, he could already feel the shiver rippling out from the places where his fingers met the delicate knot work of Jimmy's spine. He reminded himself that he was in the right.

Oh yes, the burning was back, and it didn't help that his breath was all short and electrified. He laughed to himself, remembering something a girlfriend had told him once upon a time, about men having a one track mind. She had meant it to be sexual, but it was true in general, really. Why had she broken up with him, again? He wasn't… physical enough?

It was weird how he could think and dance at the same time—how he could be so hyperaware of everything around him and still manage to remember an old girlfriend. His fourth, if he wasn't mistaken. The one he'd picked up in college, second character featured in one of the only two times he'd ever… gone all the way. It had been nice, he remembered, but not quite worth the fuss other men put up—not even as good as tonight, spinning along with Jimmy.

Edgar chanced to glance out into the crowd, and noticed something interesting. Some of the dull looks were fading, a few of the mindless couples really looking at each other for the first time—he looked to the punch table, now, and noticed that the men and women standing near it seemed… more lucid, if a word like 'lucid' could be applied to the sort of people residing in Hell. Though he was curious, it was a bit hard to concentrate on the figures surrounding them. They were vague shades, and man in his arms was distractingly real.

Jimmy leaned forward, a sly cut to his eyes. "I'm tired of wearing this mask," he murmured, pulling one hand from Edgar's shoulder. "Take it off, would ya?"

"Why can't you?" Edgar replied, maybe a little flustered.

"I can," Jimmy leaned even closer, "But I want you to."

Jimmy shifted both his hands to Edgar's waist as the older man, eyes averted, undid the tie on his mask with quick fingers. Jimmy's grinning, light-skinned face appeared as the facade slid off, and Edgar wasn't sure what happened to it because the next thing he was aware of was dancing again, leading them back towards the wall and into the darkness. The dim lighting seemed more inviting than ominous with Jimmy pressed against him.

The burning was a fire now; his breath was a current of ten thousand volts. The thief grinned, knowingly, and Edgar was forcibly reminded of all the moments before, lost in the tide of events, moments like these when he wanted nothing more than to touch, to be touched—everywhere, anywhere, skin-to-skin…

The hand on his shoulder slid up his neck, finding the pounding place below his ear where blood rushed, where his nerves themselves shivered. Just a single nail, pressed too hard, and he could be a bleeding mess on the floor. Just a brush and his body screamed—not good, not good, you've been here before and you remember how close you came—

"There's a door, there," Jimmy whispered, eyes flicking back towards the wall where, surprise surprise, there was a door.

The younger man's hips brushed his own and suddenly, he couldn't remember what he'd been thinking. Oh, fuck, he was hard.

Jimmy ended up with his back pressed against the door as Edgar forced it open, and they spilled into the nearly dark room all tangled together. Jimmy reached for his partner's mask, threw it aside, and alarm bells went off in the back of Edgar's head but the buzzing drowned them out, burning and sparking wherever he and Jimmy touched…

He went in for a kiss. He wasn't sure what made him do it, because there was a fine line he'd always walked with Jimmy and kissing crossed that line, made it something he didn't like to think about, but all he wanted, all he could think of was the pale man's lips on his—

They barely touched and then Jimmy was backing away with a strangled gasp, horror in his eyes before he clenched them shut.

Edgar's skin turned cold, ice cold now where the younger man's fingers had been only seconds before. What…

"No," Jimmy said, and it sounded almost like a prayer, "No, I can't do this. I can't… you can't do this."

"What?" Edgar asked, dazed, as if he'd received a blow to the head.

"You… I… can't…" Jimmy stopped, hissed slightly, and then said: "Confession time."

TBC


	14. Prison and Sentence

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

"I'm not trapped here with these people-  
these people are trapped here with me!"

* * *

"Confession time," Jimmy hissed, fingers splayed as if they could ward off Edgar's very existence.

"What… What are you talking about?"

Edgar stood in the middle of the dark room, with the sinking feeling of a crash seeping into his bones. God, he should have known, he should have known this was going to end badly. And he never should have tried to kiss him. What was he thinking? Shit, he crossed so many lines…

"You…" Jimmy started, then he stopped. "That woman, she told me… she said you'd… if we… Screw this! There's shit you gotta know before you go any further."

Edgar said nothing. Frankly, he was confused and leaking regret from every cell, and he didn't think he could manage a coherent response anyway.

"I haven't told you—fuck, I haven't told you a lot of stuff. I almost did, a couple times, but I could never get the words out, an' you're always cuttin' me off with some sappy shit. The words just wouldn't… they just wouldn't… I didn't want you to, y'know, leave. An' you're gonna. But you need to know before you go kissin' me…"

"Jimmy," Edgar tried, "I told you, nothing—"

"I'm a horrible person, Edgar!" the teen shouted. "I'm a fucking murderer and you don't want to know what else! I've done things you'd never be able to forgive, 'cause you're a nice guy an' a fuckin' Christian an' I'm not either of those things, an' I've done shit you'd want to shoot me for…"

"Jimmy! I already know you killed people! It's alright, it's in the past and we're all dead anyway, and you're damned after all, so it's all fair, alright?"

The boy took another step back, his face twisted in pain. "No, no, you don't get it Edgar… you don't fucking get it! I don't want to talk about it, I don't wanna… shit, can't you just believe me? I've done awful things, and you'd better just leave."

Edgar didn't feel at all like leaving, not when Jimmy was freaking out like this—he tried to put a hand on his shoulder but the boy turned away, violently.

"_Rape_, Edgar," the younger man hissed.

The hand froze in midair.

"I've done it. Twice. Two fucking times, an' it's a helluva lot more than anybody ought to—even Nny… even _Johnny_ said I was a monster. Johnny Fucking C said _I_ was a monster! What's the difference, I want to know. What's the difference between the way he tortures people and what I did? But, hah, then I sat down and thought about it—you remember that subway I rode into Hell?"

Edgar nodded, mutely.

"I _told_ you it gave me too much time to think. I've never thought like that before, an' I never want to again. Me an' my sins, surrounded by people, an' I've never been more alone than that… I sat down an' I thought about it, an' I… what's the difference? There's no difference! No absolution! We _are_ the same, me an' fucking Johnny C. An' that's not good! I rode that goddamn subway for half an eternity an' all I could feel was dying, again, hearin' my fucking hero dress me down like one of his shitty victims an'…"

The teen took a deep breath, and turned back to Edgar. There was a moment of silence, while Jimmy collected his shattered thoughts and his friend tried to absorb it all.

"Johnny… Johnny killed you?"

"Yeah," Jimmy answered, a crack in his voice. "Told me how stupid I was an' then he killed me, ripped me open and—well, it wasn't pretty. Or fun. At all. I'm a monster, he was right—fuck, but he's a monster too! We're both monsters—we're all monsters, me an' the whole world! Except you. The girls… god, the girls, I didn't even know them. The first one, I'd just seen Johnny for the first time an' I… I fucking _snapped_, she looked so much like this girl I knew back home, this fucking cheerleader an' they're all the same, you know, all the same on the inside…"

Edgar took a deep breath and stepped forward again. "We… can talk about that some other time. We _will_ talk about it some other time. But Jimmy, I knew, I knew from the first time we met that you'd done bad things. Horrible things. I mean, I didn't expect this, exactly, but I'm not as surprised as—"

"You're a psychologist," the criminal interrupted, eyes narrow. "You gotta know how fucked up I am. You know… you know what rape is, what it's _like_. You know…"

"It's awful," Edgar said shortly. "There's nothing quite like it in the world. It causes trauma and pain the likes of which most people will never understand, and it can warp the mind of the victim almost irreparably. I know, Jimmy. I know."

"Then how are you still standing there?" the younger man shouted, grabbing Edgar by the shoulders. His nails dug into skin, and the older man noticed for the first time that they were back in their own clothing. A minor detail.

"Because I know you too!" Edgar shot back, fists clenching. "And I know that you have problems, and I know that you _are_ sorry, deep down, and I know that you're smart and you're funny, and you're my best friend! Because _nothing_ you've done can erase that. Why does everyone seem to think that I'm a coward? Listen here, Jimmy: If I left you, if I walked out this door right now I'd be a monster too—I'd be leaving the person I care about most behind when he needs me more than ever, when I have a chance to help, to change something if it can be changed! You want me to stay, don't deny that!"

The nails in his arms retracted somewhat. "I don't."

"Then let me stay! Let me help you, or at least let me be there for you! Please. Tell me… tell me why?"

"I hate chicks," Jimmy snorted, looking away, bitterness layered over his voice. "You know that. I used to write their names in a book, y'know, all the bitches who screwed me over an' all the jocks who pushed me down the stairs an'… I saw Johnny just _killing_ 'em, an' not worrying about cops or morals or… _fuck_, I just…"

"...Vindication," Edgar sighed.

Jimmy's hands fell away from his shoulders. "Yeah. Yeah. Sounds kinda shallow, doesn't it? Y'know, the more time I spend down here, the less I even believe myself. I think… if it wasn't for you, I'da gone crazy by now. Totally, no-solution crazy. Just me an' my thoughts, an' that shitty apartment, stealing booze an'… I would've lost my mind. I got memories, all kinds of stupid memories—being killed, killing, running away, being picked on, Carmela… I don't think I've got a single memory I'd keep, if I had the choice."

Edgar looked at his friend, searching for something else between the lines of rigid shoulders and tight shut eyes. Something about the story didn't quite fit, some detail was missing… He knew about these kinds of problems, a little, and what was more, he knew what made people tick. You don't go crazy because some kid in junior high pantsed you in the locker room. And, if you're mostly sane, you don't kill people without some broken cog in the back of your head. And you don't regret it either...

"Jimmy…" he murmured, "I understand why you killed those girls, I think, but why did you… why did you…"

"Rape them?"

Edgar had a horrible moment, remembering a conversation the two of them had once, outside of a restaurant. God, but this shed a whole new light on Jimmy's rape jokes—they _had_ been jokes, hadn't they? Something inside of him shivered, completely out of context.

"I dunno," the younger man went on, "that's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? I, uh, I just…"

"You're lying," Edgar cut in, a shrewd note in his voice. "There's something else. Come on, what else have you got to lose at this point?"

Jimmy looked away, probably searching for an exit. "No, really, I was just following fucking example, I swear."

"Bullshit," Edgar insisted, and apparently the curse shocked something out of his companion. "I'm thinking… I'm thinking this was personal. You know what I'm talking about. Tell me. Now."

Jimmy blinked and, twisting his hands in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture, replied, "You remember my stepmother?"

Edgar looked at him, carefully running through all the mental notes he had taken over the weeks or eons. "The one who gave you those scars?"

Jimmy laughed, bitterly, rubbing his shoulder in an absentminded way. "I told you that?"

"In passing."

"Yeah, well, that's the one. My dad married her when I was younger, an'…" the younger man trailed off. "Shit, I don't want to talk about this. I haven't told anybody about it."

"Please, Jimmy. Please. For me?"

The teen looked at him for a long moment, searching for something, maybe a sign that Edgar would be willing to use this against him one day just like every other person he had ever known. Apparently, he didn't find it. "Fine," he sighed.

Edgar settled in.

"They got married when I was younger, y'know, like early teens. They dated for about six months… I don't remember my mother, but I remember most of my dad's girlfriends—he was pretty rich, rich enough to get a nice long succession of playboy bunny types even when he was getting' near fifty. None of 'em really looked at me, which was fine. I didn't need a mom or a babysitter, and I didn't care where my dad went on Saturday nights. We weren't exactly close, y'know, but we were happy, I guess."

Jimmy shifted, eyes turning far away.

"Then Carmela came along, with her fake boobs an' her stupid-ass fake nails. God, I hated that woman. My dad just loved her. They dated about six months an' then I guess my dad was getting worried about gettin' old alone cause the next thing I knew, they were getting married. Married! An' she wore a white dress—I just wanted to paint that thing red more than I ever wanted anything since. They were married about a month before she started lookin' at me… I mean, she really _looked_ at me. Like I was a designer purse or a parfait or somethin'.

"An' one night, she comes in… into my room… I was lyin' on the bed with my laptop, an' she comes in an' she locks the door behind her. She says, she says all kindsa shit about me an' I'm a horrible person an' my father'd be better off without me, an' she has all the power now… says, 'do what I say or I'll make your life living hell.' What the fuck did my dad see in her?"

Edgar murmured, "Maybe he was tired of being alone."

Jimmy snorted. "Maybe he needed to grow some balls. So, Carmela, she does this every night. She comes into my room an' she touches my things an' she threatens me, tells me how useless I am an' how she's making my dad so fucking _happy_. Then, this one night, she comes in an'… I think she'd been drinking, some, an' she starts the whole spiel so I kinda tune her out until she says, 'I've been talking to your father about military school. It's such a nice place for nasty little failures.' An' I'm like, what the fuck, woman? That bitch always knew how to hit me where it hurt. So I'm telling her there's no way in Hell I'm goin' and we'll just see about all that, an' while I'm talking she's moving closer and closer…"

Jimmy's hands clenched, and Edgar could almost see it, the boy on his bed in the near dark, ranting as his step mother inched closer and closer, a dark shine in her perfectly painted eyes.

"An' then she's on the bed, in front of me, an' she's saying how maybe she could change her mind, if there was… if I'd do something for _her_… an' at this point I'm real freaked out, 'cause I've heard about this kinda stuff before, but it doesn't usually go like _this_. An' then she's got my laptop knocked to the floor an' she's leaning over me, but I'm like, 'no, no, get the fuck off,' an' of course she ain't listening.

"I couldn't move. Can you imagine? I hate her. I hated her. She's my fucking step-mother and she's unbuckling my pants and telling me some shit about how I owe her, an' I just wanna stab her in the eye with a pencil, but my dad'll see it an' who's he gonna believe? I can't do anything. I dunno, maybe there was something I coulda done, maybe I was missing something. I don't like to think about it. I kept telling her to get off, I think I threatened her but she just laughed 'cause we both knew I couldn't do anything."

The teen looked up suddenly, a fierce gleam in his eyes. It made Edgar wince.

"I can't even tell you what it was like. I was fourteen, Edgar. Fourteen. And I hated her so much. But she touched me an'… fuck… I'd just hit puberty, you know? I hate her. I hate me. She was fucked up an' she fucked me an' she fucked me up too. It was like… I remember her on top of me, looking down at me like it was, like it was my fault an' I deserved it. Hell, I probably did. I don't know. It wasn't every night. Sometimes she'd go a month without even looking at me. That was the worst part 'cause then I'd start to think, 'maybe she's bored now?', an' I'd get all relieved, an' then she'd be there again that night with that fucking _smile_ an' a gag—'cause, y'know, I tried scream for help the second night—an' I'd know it wasn't over at all."

Then he smiled, and it chilled Edgar to the bone. "Sometimes she really hurt me. How pathetic is that? She wasn't even strong, she didn't have any kinda training. But she could give me one look, just a look, Edgar, an' I couldn't run. Couldn't think. Knives, she loved knives. She liked little cuts that healed in a week, all over my body until I was dripping blood, she thought it was so funny… an' then she'd fuck me an' god it was painful, everything was pain an' I still _got it up_. What the fuck was wrong with me?"

It was horrible to hear, horrible because there was nothing Edgar could say, nothing that would help. Not now. Maybe, maybe later.

"I told her, once, after it had been going on a while—I didn't like to think about it like that, but, y'know, she was basically raping me. An' I told her, 'I'll tell, and they'll put you away for child abuse', and you know what she says?"

Edgar shook his head.

"She laughs, and she says, 'You came, Jimmy. As far as the courts're concerned, _you_ raped _me_. Imagine how it'll look to your dad, you forcing yourself on his helpless wife. I'll tell him you tied me down an—'"

Jimmy stopped, choking on his own imitation. His nails dug into his skin so hard that Edgar could see blood around the rims.

"That's when I stopped fighting. Fuck, I hate her so much—she's still alive, up there, living it up while my stupid dad foots the bill. I hope she gets hit by a train. No, I hope she gets captured by Nny and he keeps her barely alive in his stupid basement for the next thirty years without any of her precious fucking makeup. I know why she did it. It's about power, it's about control. It's about provin' once and for all who's better than who, who's got the right... who's got the right to live."

"…How long did that go on?"

"Hell, I don't know. Years. They got married when I was like, fourteen, and I ran away when I was eighteen. So four years or something."

Edgar sat back in his chair, eyes closed. He had expected, well, something like this. A psychology degree prepares you, a little bit, and confidants from the Academy of Science how shown him on a few occasions that such things did go on, in the same world as him. Still, though he had cared about his students—of course, how could he not?—Jimmy was… Jimmy was different. This time, it was almost _personal_. It made him angry.

"See?" the boy demanded, jumping to his feet once more, "I told you I'm a monster. I told you. And now you get it." His voice cracked.

Edgar's eyes snapped open and he shook his head, almost violently. "No, you aren't!"

He supposed it was the confidence in his tone that made Jimmy pause, a disbelieving look on his face. "Don't lie," he ordered, almost begged. "This is fucking hard enough without you playing martyr. I told you, I told you all of it. You know what I've done, you know what I've… you know. I'm a rapist an' a rape-victim an' a murderer, an' a helluva lot of other shit. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody more fucked up than I am."

Standing too, now, Edgar took a step closer to the younger man. "I'm not lying, Jimmy. I'm not. There's no such thing as monsters. Horrible things happened to you and you did horrible things. I'm not saying you didn't. I'm saying… I'm saying…"

He stepped forward again, and reached out for Jimmy's hand. The criminal tried to shake him off, looking close to tears, but Edgar held on tight, taking the other hand too, so now they were face to face.

"Look, you asked me once, whether you still get a second chance after you die. You asked me, and I didn't have an answer then. But I know, now, that everyone gets a second chance. Everyone. Always. You're sorry, don't try to deny it. You've been sorry for a long time! And I know, there's three things everybody gets—" the older man held up three fingers "—and that's a soul mate, death, and a second chance. It's only fair."

"Life ain't fair, Edgar," Jimmy replied, looking away.

"Yes," the older man replied, "But… we're dead."

His friend was silent for a moment, and when he looked up again it was clear that he was fighting tears tooth and nail, now. "You're serious," he whispered, almost to himself.

"Of course. You believe me, don't you?"

"Why?" Jimmy asked, stepping closer, urgent now. "Why should I believe you? Why do you care? Why, why in God's name does it matter what happens to me? I need to know why you're doing this."

Edgar didn't reply for a moment. Well, what was the answer? It was the shared secrets between them, and the way his blood burned when they danced, and the countless days they had spent bickering over everything from the price of alcohol to the best kind of movie, the way Jimmy held doors open for him when he would have shut them on anybody else, early morning conversations about sodium laurel sulfate, the thought of an eternity without someone to make fun of his clothes or call him a faggot…

"Because," Edgar started, whirling with reasons and memories, "because I don't want to lose you, and I don't want you… I want you to be happy. No matter what. I guess, sometimes I'm not logical, I just …"

"You're so totally in love with me."

That brought Edgar up short.

Jimmy was grinning, now, though his eyes still looked suspiciously wet. At Edgar's shocked silence, the grin grew wider. "My life is such a freakin' joke! You're in love with me—Me, the absolute worst human being either of us has ever met—barring Johnny, of course—an' you, you're the absolute nicest guy I've ever had the misfortune of meeting."

Edgar scowled. "Misfortune? You're the one who's been hitting on me for the last however-the-hell-long stretch of eternity. Granted, I knew you weren't serious, but—"

"Totally serious, man. I'd screw you in about two seconds flat."

"…It's nice to know you think so highly of me."

Jimmy broke down laughing, a few tears mixed into the mirth, and after a few moments of attempting to look offended, Edgar succumbed to it too. It was all too surreal.

"Okay, okay," Jimmy finally said, as the last giggles faded out. "So, really, you still love me even though I did all that shit?"

Edgar looked down at where their hands were still intertwined. "Er, yes. I suppose so."

"..Sweet."

And, in the end, love was a good choice in words—they say that love makes people do crazy things, after all. And Love… It would be very difficult to step back from everything you understood—prejudices, vendettas, values, paradigms—and really see it through somebody else's eyes, without it. That was love, wasn't it? Acceptance? Probably.

"So, does this mean you'll sleep with me now?" Jimmy asked, a sly note in his voice.

Edgar stared at him. "What do you think?"

"…Right. Well, fine then, you're still sleeping on the couch."

"Somehow, I think I'll survive. Let's go home, Jimmy. I'm a little drained, you understand."

Later, Edgar would think back and remember the way the crowd changed, wondering what exactly was in that punch. Distilled apple of Eden? Vice of humanity? Cocaine?

He'd look back and he'd think that, even though at the time he didn't think much of it at all, there was definitely something darker about the glares they got as they left that shadowy room. Narrowed eyes and whispers bounced their way, fingers pointed and the path in front of them cleared as they sought out the exit. At the time, Edgar though it best not to question the good fortune or the new attention.

But looking back, he'd remember a few faces in particular—one woman, her hair drooping out of its curls, following them with the eyes of a woman scorned. Another, a man, whose teeth clenched as they passed by, who muttered something to his still in-stupor date. Woman, who did a double, then triple take. Man, whose anger was positively radioactive.

At the time, Edgar was tired. At the time, Edgar was recovering from the revelation that his best friend was the worst kind of criminal, recovering from having someone else inform him that he was, in fact, in love. At the time, Edgar was more tired than he cared to admit, and still just a very little bit intoxicated.

So he ignored the glares and whispers, more concerned with the man whose shoulder was brushing his own. The mass of anonymous damned were, as always, sublimated so he could focus better on the man beside him. After all, there were so many of them, and they were always hateful—it took another morning to make him wonder why they were so focused on him and Jimmy when, usually, there was enough animosity to go around and around.

But at the time, Edgar just wanted to go home.

And by home, he meant Jimmy's place.

TBC


	15. You Make the Flowers Die

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

"_You make the flowers die, you make the girls cry,  
like a bird with a broken wing-  
but you make me sing."_

_-Casey Chambers_

_AN:_ Invader Zim reference here! And also, it's spelled Lows on purpose. It's a ... pun. _Don't shoot me_

* * *

It was a difficulty breathing that finally woke Edgar, that and morning light seeping through his eyelids. They cracked open, greeted by familiar purple walls lit almost blinding white where the window cast luminance over them. Something caught his eye, at the bottom of his vision… black and pale… He shifted to get a better look, and to take the pressure off his chest…

Jimmy. Jimmy was draped across him, knees curled around his own, head on top of his lungs, snoring lightly. Edgar froze.

What the…

"_Jimmy_," he hissed. Nothing. "Jimmy!"

The younger man opened an eye and looked up at him. "…Heeey," the boy greeted him, stretching his legs in a way that ended up more obscene than it should have been.

"Jimmy, what are you doing?"

"Uh… Well, I _was_ sleeping."

"Yes. On top of me!"

"Dude, chill. It's way too early for shouting."

Edgar stared at him. As long as he didn't move, this wasn't _the_ most awkward position he'd ever been in.

"You know…" Edgar started, brow raised, "when you said I was sleeping on the couch, I didn't think you meant you'd be sleeping there _with_ me."

Jimmy, sprawled out on top of him, grinned. "What? Who said that?"

Edgar rolled his eyes and flipped his unexpected bedfellow to the floor where he landed in a heap. "Remind me never to fall asleep first again."

Looking out the single window, Edgar fancied that the bright white illumination buzzing at the window had a hint of morning gold in it, the way he remembered it back on earth. It was pretty, it was bright, and it was warm—Hell was a beautiful place, all in all. He remembered how his mother had complained, when he was little, about the concrete and the asphalt, the way she'd pined for trees and rivers… but the city was all he'd ever known, and it was beautiful, to him.

Jimmy was grinning up at him, a kind of silly look on his thin face. "Make me breakfast," he ordered.

"…You just molested me and now you want me to fix you a meal?"

"I want waffles!"

Edgar sighed.

Five minutes later, Edgar was mixing batter in the kitchen and shaking his head at the absurdity of his existence. A shame there were no blueberries in the refrigerator… no, scratch that, he shuddered to think of the 'fruity' puns that would incite.

Jimmy giggled in the corner. "You're like my wife."

Edgar glared at him. "I'd stop that line of thought if I were you, lest you suddenly find yourself lacking a couple key pieces of anatomy."

"When'd you grow that spine?"

"Probably about the same time you decided you wanted to get married."

"It's only 'cause you're such a sweet homemaker. And I'd like to see you in an apron, just an apron, if you know what I mean—"

A waffle to the face effectively cut off that line of thought. There were pitchers who would envy the speed of that breakfast item as it hurtled towards the teen. And there were boxers who would envy the speed at which it knocked him to the floor.

"THANK YOU FOR THROWING A PASTRY AT MY HEAD!"

"WAFFLES AREN'T PASTRIES!"

"THAT'S DEBATABLE!"

The older man scowled, but he was actually pretty relieved to see that everything was normal between them-though he knew they'd have to bring up some important things soon. Not today. Tomorrow. He couldn't let his friend go on with his conscience all mangled and his memories wrapped in hatred, not when he could help somehow. But normalcy, that was a kind of reassurance in itself. It was, to Edgar, both a promise and an answer to the questions he imagined Jimmy was asking himself… and while the boy was still in many ways a mystery, Edgar knew him better than he'd known anyone before.

The older man poured in another waffle, for himself, and smiled slightly. He loved Hell. He loved the universe exactly as it was, right then, at that moment.

"I had a dream," Jimmy said, righting himself with waffle in hand.

"That one day all children would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?"

"No. Fuck you. Now I'm not gonna tell you."

Edgar rolled his eyes, pulling off his glasses. They were a bit smudged, he noticed. "Oh, you know you want to tell me."

Jimmy snorted. "You know you wanna know."

Edgar just waited.

"…So, I had this dream about a flying hat, an' you were there an' there was this giant corndog… but see, it got weird just before you woke me up. We were there an' then you were gone, an' the Devil was there instead. He was talkin' about _sacrifice_ an' shit, quotin' poetry… anyway, I was wondering if he said anything to you?"

Edgar shook his head. "I never dream anymore… I used to, every so often, when I was alive. Once I had this dream that I was eating cereal at my kitchen table, and there was this blazing scarecrow sitting next to me… We had a polite conversation and them I woke up. But no, I don't dream anymore."

Jimmy hummed and returned to his waffle. "Weirdo."

"Takes one to know one, Jimmy."

"…Guess so."

-0-

Edgar examined the apartment he had slowly reformed over the last few weeks, satisfied with his handiwork.

"And he saw what he had done, and he was pleased."

A snort from the direction of the couch.

Though, the crown molding was still missing, and the baseboards were in dire need of assistance. Oh, woe the fate of the fashionable, forever surrounded by the needy and helpless to intercede. He wondered if Hell even sold that sort of thing?

"Haven't messed with my apartment enough?" Jimmy asked him, the disembodied voice incredulous. "Fuck, the only room you haven't done is mine."

"Because you won't let me in there," Edgar reminded him, idly, mentally estimating the amount of wood he would need.

"Damn straight I won't. A guy's room is the temple of his soul an' shit."

Edgar turned back towards the centerpiece of the living room, now more interested in the dead man flopped over it than in renovation. Which was saying something.

"_Temple_, Jimmy?"

"Hey," the younger man defended, "I can speak your language too. I just don't wanna."

Edgar laughed. He didn't doubt it. The younger man had proved many times over that he had hidden depths, and Edgar had decided a while back not to be surprised by anything anymore. After all, Jimmy _had_ read the books they picked out. And he _had_ shared his tragic, mysterious origins. Really, the only thing that might surprise him was if nothing else surprised him... which was a bit of a brain-twister if you thought about it for too long.

"There _is_ one way," Jimmy drawled, "could get you into my room..."

"Jimmy, _please_," Edgar groaned. "Can't you let that go?"

"Fuck no. You know you want me."

"You know you _want_ me to want you."

A lot of their conversations went like this.

Edgar went back to inspecting his handiwork. It was starting to feel like he lived here, lately, like this was his home too. This is where he came back to, not Heaven, not his fold-out chair. Hell. This apartment. It held this huge place in his mind, the place that was once filled with the house he grew up in. He'd gone up to Heaven earlier, to change, and found himself struck by how... out of place he felt. It was like going to a distant relative's house- awkward and weird smelling.

So, it might have been irrational, but he was sort of hurt by the fact that he'd never been in Jimmy's room. There was a symbolism there, not so much in that he thought of the apartment as his home, including that room, but that it was _Jimmy's_ room. And he hadn't been there.

Irrational.

"I want to see if they sell baseboards," Edgar spoke up, suddenly wanting to put as much distance between himself and that room in the back as possible, or else he might just break down the door.

"Dude, I'm coming with. You aren't getting away that easy."

"Jimmy, if I could get away that easy, you'd still be lying under a giant taco like a cripple."

They tumbled out into the street, bickering all the way. Edgar led them down Styx and west onto Cocytus Avenue, switching off onto smaller streets as they went, and he was pleased to find that he could now carry on a conversation without getting lost in the process.

"Where are we going anyways?" Jimmy asked, between shooting evil looks at one pinched looking pedestrian across the street.

"Lows," Edgar answered, pulling his friend along. "They've got just about everything. And since the Wall-to-Wallmart is apparently an earthly incarnation of our favorite archdemon, 'just about' will have to suffice."

"Uh-huh. An' where is this big bad Lows?"

Edgar pointed around the corner of the next building, smiling. "Just there."

The edge of that building was the nasty sort of brick that skinned up your hands like sandpaper, but Jimmy wrapped his fingers around it anyway and peered out of the alley. Edgar sighed. The boy had no sense of self preservation.

"Huh." Jimmy looked up. "Okay yeah, that's pretty big, I 'mit that. But not so much bad."

Edgar sidestepped the teen to get a good look at it himself. Oh my. How many _stories _did it have? He thought he could maybe see the top of the building, if he squinted… And it stretched out on either side as far as he could tell. Suddenly, his task was beginning to seem a bit daunting.

"The clerk at the Aberzombie told me it was evil. I think he was exaggerating, but still, don't underestimate it."

The front of the building did little to reinstall any confidence in Edgar, as it was covered in splatters of what he hoped was not blood. The two dead men shared a glance and, nervously, Edgar peered through the glass on the automatic door.

"It looks like a maze," the older man murmured. He really should have taken that clerk more seriously.

"Fuck," Jimmy replied, briskly. "Well, let's get the hell inside then."

Edgar caught the teen's arm as he tried to march in. "Wait," he said, turning to look around them. "We need a… string or something. Like the Theseus myth, the labyrinth. Something to lead us back, or we'll get permanently lost and I don't know about you, but I can think of a couple better ways to spend my eternity."

Letting go, he bounced over to a dumpster and checked inside, scowling at the filth. Ew. He was so going to need another manicure.

"Edgar-"

"Not now, Jimmy."

"Dude, I've got a—"

"Just hold on."

"No, man, I've got a… stringy… thing!"

Jimmy reached into a pocket of his baggy black jeans and pulled out a skein of thin white yarn.

Edgar raised an eyebrow. "How _did_ you fit that in there?"

"Do you want the string or what?"

"That's called a skein, Jimmy. A skein of yarn."

The boy squinted at him. "You would know."

Edgar snatched up the yarn and tied one end to the fire alarm, wondering what in the world a fire alarm was doing _outside_ the building rather than inside it. In any case, it made a good anchor and when he was certain the knot would hold he pushed open the doors with Jimmy on his heels.

The gray ceiling loomed high above them and the scent of paint and sawdust filled every space below it. They entered the labyrinth between two shelves of lampshades, turned left and hoped for the best. White string trailed behind them, winding between false walls and towering racks of doors, looping back on itself for moments after they returned from a dead end. Jimmy walked with his hands in pockets, eyes shifting for a glance between shelves—always a little paranoid, but now nigh on jumpy.

Evil Lows, huh? One of these days, Edgar had to learn when to take precautions.

After countless tense minutes, and one particularly questionable looking rack of sharp and blunt tools—Edgar had to pull Jimmy away from those, which made him a little nervous—they found their way to a notable fork in the maze. On the left, darkness and gloom, and the unnerving buzz of dying florescent lights. On the left, bright light and well worn linoleum.

The men looked at each other.

"Left." Jimmy pointed towards the darkness.

"I was going to say right," Edgar murmured. White string stretched out behind him.

"Trust me," the younger man said—Asked? Pleaded?

Edgar bit his lip. On the one hand, bright lights. On the other hand, creepy darkness. On the third hand, _Jimmy. _And he did trust Jimmy, in the end. Somehow, he didn't think the teen would be so serious if it were only a passing fancy, not if it really didn't matter.

"Alright," he sighed, "We'll take the road less traveled. I've heard it can make all the difference."

Jimmy grabbed his hand and pulled them down into the darkness.

"Episcopal churches have labyrinths," Edgar muttered, mostly to fill the silence. "A few catholic too. Charlemagne? I think that was the one. In any case, they're thought to help you find God. This is a bit ironic, I suppose."

"Maybe God's got himself a summerhouse in the middle?" Jimmy suggested.

"You know, somehow I doubt that."

Edgar was a little worried about Jimmy now—they passed a display of nails and screws and the boy didn't bother with a single stupid joke. Maybe he shouldn't have brought him along, but then he had no idea it was going to be like this. He imagined he must have gotten a bit spoiled by the straightforwardness elsewhere in Hell- sometimes it was easy to forget that he was living in the underworld.

"Hey, _Edgar_," Jimmy hissed.

The older man ignored the tingle that came with his name from Jimmy's mouth, because that was _so_ inappropriate right now.

"What?"

"Do you hear… something?"

Edgar stopped, handed the yarn to Jimmy, and listened. There was a kind of skittering sound, yes, somewhere up ahead, reminiscent of… rats.

Edgar was not what you'd call fond of rats.

He turned back to Jimmy. "Er, so, are you scared of rodents?"

"Uh, not exactly." The boy looked uneasy. "Why? Please don't tell me—"

"Shh! Did you see that?"

Something _big _shifted quickly in the darkness. The lights above them flickered on every so often, split seconds of almost blinding light, like lightening without the thunder—absolute murder on the night vision. He couldn't see more than a vague outline, but it was _way_ too big to be a regular rat and it almost looked more like—

"Oh Christ! Rat people!"

The nearest monster hissed at him, beady eyes narrowed. The elongated face twitched, skeletal hands scratched the floor, and ew, positively ancient looking clothes fluttered on skinny bodies.

Jimmy looked like he might be sick. "You're fucking _kidding_ me."

"_Turn back,"_ the rat-creature hissed, skittering a little closer. _"You will be lost here forever.._."

Edgar squeezed the yarn tighter. Why did all his little ventures turn into such horrible messes? "Uh, ha, I… look, not to bother you but I really just want to buy some supplies, really, there's nothing awful or dramatic about it."

"_You will be lost," _the rat creature repeated, blinking. "_Th__ere is no return from the labyrinth, no escape…"_

"Er, actually, you see I have this string here, and—"

"_Nooo_ _escape. You will remain here forever, just like us."_

A second rat creature edged forward into Edgar's range of vision. Okay, well, they didn't seem dangerous at least, and that was a positive development as far as he was concerned. And, they kind of seemed like they meant well.

"_Trapped_," the first creature moaned, "_just_ _like us. You will become like us_."

"No, you s—"

"_I_," the second creature wailed, "was once a _man_…"

Jimmy squinted in the monster's direction. "But… you're a woman."

The female blinked at him.

"Look," Edgar went on, "we just want to find the help desk, if it's not too much trouble. Do you know how to get there?"

The two creatures exchanged a glance. The first one replied, "_I suppose_…"

In the end, their directions consisted of a left-right-right-left string that could confuse an experienced mountaineer. It was a very, very lucky thing that Edgar had a high spatial intelligence and had constructed a sort of map in his head as the monsters spoke. They'd taken too many turns up until then for his map to handle, but the ones ahead—not too many, five or so—could be recalled easily enough.

The female rat looked up at Jimmy, a gruesome expression that might be called a smile across her face. "_When you become a rat-person too_," she hissed, "_you are welcome to share my nest…_"

Edgar glared. "_Bitc_—" he bit his tongue to stop the insult. "Ahem. We'll be going now. _Right Jimmy_?"

"Uh, right?"

Edgar wrapped viselike fingers around his wrist and pulled him off into the darkness, away from the simpering rat-people.

"Thanks for the offer!" Jimmy called back over his shoulder, grinning.

_Oh, don't look so pleased with yourself._

As the rathole disappeared behind them, Jimmy turned his attention to the man in front of him, grinning—no, smirking—even harder than before. Edgar thought about letting go, but his fingers didn't want to cooperate. Well, whatever. At least they wouldn't get separated.

"You really _do_ like me," Jimmy said, all teeth and glittering eyes.

The lights flashed on for a split second, blinding them both.

"So I've been told," Edgar ground out, then more quietly, "though I can't imagine why."

"I'm stupid, sadistic an' suicidal," the younger man sang out, "an' you love that in a man."

Edgar grunted. "So I have bad taste. Thank you for informing me."

"Don't worry 'bout it. When we turn into hideous rat-people, _you_ can share _my_ nest. 'kay?"

"Why do I get the feeling that I've just experienced the most romantic moment of your life?"

"Don't you go around accusing me of romance. I'm a killer. Bad to the fucking _bone_."

Edgar looked at him, considering. "Yes," he replied finally, "you're certainly some kind of of a lady-killer."

Jimmy laughed, and Edgar knew in that moment that he'd made a decision without realizing it, and that choice was much like the light path and the dark path—here too, appearances were deceiving. Somehow, the answer that looked wrong at first glance was actually right, and the road less traveled led to the only place worth being.

The universe is funny like that.

Sometime later, the dynamic duo found themselves standing between a shelf of mace and a shelf of turpentine, contemplating a large yellow sign reading 'helpdesk'. The lights were buzzing brightly now, and there was about a foot of string left.

"Think this is the center?"

Edgar tied his end of string around the side of one shelf, replying, "I'd say so."

Something rumbled beyond the opening, and the two men shared a look. Whatever it was, it couldn't be much worse than rat-people or that giant cockroach they ran into three turns back. Edgar had nearly passed out at that one.

They entered the Labyrinth center warily, keeping close to the shelves behind them. The help desk sat in the middle of the space like the inner sanctum of a temple, and behind it a snoring man (so that was the rumbling) whose feet were propped up on the desktop. Edgar frowned and tugged on the man's boot (nice boot, western style but well worn with subtle patterns worked into the leather).

"What?" The man started, opening one surprised eye. The nameplate on his desk read _Bondye._

"Er, hello," Edgar said, tapping his fingers nervously. "Do you have a minute?" he asked, choosing to ignore the fact that Mr. Bondye had been sleeping when they walked in.

"Got a lot of minutes," the stranger replied, something like a Carribean accent in his voice. He waved with almost black fingers. "Got all the minutes in the world."

Edgar glanced at the nameplate again. He could not for the life of him figure out how to pronounce that. The dark man noticed and laughed.

"Bondye," he said, pronouncing it 'bon-dyee'. "Not as hard as it looks."

"Oh," Edgar replied. He snuck a glance at Jimmy—distracted by something sharp behind them—and proceeded to get terribly off track. "What language is that, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Haitian Creole. Pretty language, ugly place. Visits are painful, but you can't do everything for people- sometimes you just have to let them have their own lives, even when it gets ugly."

Edgar decided that he rather liked this man. "Even when you could do something about it?"

"You can always do something about it," Bondye shrugged, "doesn't mean you should. Doesn't mean it would help, either, in the long run."

"Then, hypothetically," Edgar went on, pleased to have found himself in a philosophical debate, "when _is_ it alright to do something?"

Bondye raised a brow. "Never. You can't make decisions for people. You can't force a man to do something he didn't choose himself. Most you can do is let folks know there's another way. Got to change the _mind_, or the cycle just starts again… and nobody can change a man's brain but the man himself. Not even me." He winked.

Edgar thought about that, sneaking another look at Jimmy. "You know, you're the second intelligent being I've met in the entire city, discounting Senior Diablo. How did you end up here?"

"In Hell, you mean? Or at this here help desk?"

"Either. Both."

"Ah." The dark man slid his boots off the counter and sat forward, brown eyes bright. Edgar decided he was rather handsome in an abstract sort of way. "Well, as for Hell, I made a couple choices in my time… turned out I chose wrong. I'm at this desk because people are always coming to me for help, and it seemed like I might as well make a job of it."

"I can't imagine you get many people in here, though. Why put a labyrinth in a Lows anyways? It seems silly to me."

"Lot of things must seem silly to you, then. Best way to learn is to find it out for yourself, I say, and that's the point of a labyrinth. Think on your feet. So, what would you be looking for, mister?"

"Oh, right. Ah, I've been remodeling Jimmy's apartment a little bit, and I was trying to find the aisle with the baseboards because, you know, those apartments are criminally Spartan."

Bondye pushed his chair back and stood, smiling. "You'll find them about two turns from the main entrance."

Edgar nearly fell over. "You're kidding me."

"No, I am not. Now, pull your friend away from those hacksaws and finish your epic journey."

Nodding, the lighter man strode over to Jimmy and pried his fingers off one particularly monstrous looking tool. Jimmy glared at him and he glared back, and then they were off again. Edgar glanced back at the man behind the desk, contemplating their conversation.

"Come back and visit me," Bondye suggested, smile enigmatic. "You don't even need to drag your friend along. These visits work best alone."

Jimmy looked back now, too, scowling. "Thanks but he'll pass, _right Edgar?"_

"Er—"

"_Right_. Let's go."

Jimmy dragged the older man away, leaving a laughing stranger behind them.

And there was something… familiar about him, if only Edgar could put his finger on it. Something ineffable.

-0-

Edgar stretched his legs out over the bench, looking away from the brilliant white of the above him, like Earth's sky just after it rained… if you could call this a sky. He had first reached Hell through a cave wall, after all… perhaps they were underground? In any case, the light was starting to hurt his eyes, so he turned his attention back to Jimmy—who was sitting at his feet, at the other end of the bench, staring at the traffic as it passed by.

"You see," Edgar said, "in one version, it's actually a love story."

Jimmy looked over at him, dubious. "You gotta be kidding me."

"No, I'm quite serious. I believe it was an Islamic account—God created angels first, you know, then Earth and then people. And the… er… top angel was Lucifer. He was God's right hand man, and he loved God more than any of the other angels did… and you may not know this, but angels are practically defined by love for God."

"Lucifer was a fag?"

"What? No, well… no. Angels don't have a sex, unless they really want to put the effort in. And God is a… er… hyperdimensional being, you might say. It's very difficult to explain this to someone who never went to church."

Jimmy snorted. "Did _too_ go, I just never paid attention."

Reading between the lines, here Edgar was flattered. Simple as it was, it meant something to him that Jimmy would pay attention when _he _talked about the same subject. Come to think of it, he had the impression Jimmy never paid to _anybody_ else. He wondered what would have happened if he'd taught the boy? It might have made a difference, might have kept him from chasing after Johnny C—then again, it might have posed a couple really difficult moral issues. And legal. Maybe. He'd have to ask Jimmy about it later.

"What I was _trying_ to say," Edgar went on, mentally translating, "was that Lucifer loved God. A lot. And when God made humans, he told all his angels to bow down to them. Only, Lucifer wasn't having any of that. Basically…God was like, 'Well?' and Lucifer was like, 'What the hell, God? These mammals are so lame.' And God got all offended, even though Lucifer tried to explain it was just because he loved God so much that everything else pretty much sucked in comparison."

Edgar tried to remember the wording of the original—then he tried to break it down into Jimmy's language.

"So, God gave him one last chance to change his mind... and Lucifer was like, 'fuck, I love you too much to do that'. And God got all serious, and he said, 'Fine. Get out of my sight.' And you know when God says something like that, he's not screwing around. So Lucifer is banished to Hell, because _Hell _is to be out of the sight of the person you love most. And he lives there, in Hell, and he survives... he survives by the memory of God telling him to get out of his sight."

Traffic rushed by, and the heat and light pooled across Edgar's body, gathering in the folds of his shirt. Peace. There was something about this place that made him happy. Something about Hell. He was happy here in a way that he just wasn't in Heaven.

"That's pretty fuckin' harsh," Jimmy finally said, looking off into the distance. "Somebody loves you that much, you oughta respect it."

"Yes… the version we learned when I was a kid went differently, of course. Dante's version. It mostly revolves around jealousy and pride, and betrayal… but mostly jealousy. The Catholics are pretty obsessed with sin, and it always bothered me. Everything is a sin, sin this sin that, original sin and even the angels sin."

Down the street, a Volvo nearly took out two pedestrians.

"Carmela was catholic," the younger man said, eventually. He was serious today… he'd been serious for the last day or so, and now Edgar thought he knew why.

The older man nodded. "Religious affiliation doesn't stop people from doing horrible things… sometimes it even helps."

"She used to tell me I was a sinner. Talked a lot about penance. Even now, I'm still not sure if she was right about any of it… or all of it."

"Sometimes it seems like you can't escape it," Edgar mused. "All that anybody wants to talk about is how everyone else is doing wrong, messing up. But you see, everybody forgets the other half of the equation: 'forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.' It's not easy, but I believe…"

"Believe."

"Yes."

"Don't know?"

Edgar looked back at the teen—eternally a teen—who sat at his feet. He could feel the seriousness of the conversation in his bones, could taste it on his tongue. And, oddly enough, he didn't want to take that last sip.

"No. It's funny but, I've been to Heaven and to Hell, died, talked to the Devil and seen God, and I know just as little right now as I ever did. Possibly less."

Jimmy gave a half-laugh, tired sounding. "Edgar Vargas, man of faith. And you aren't ever gonna get those answers, are you?"

"If there's one thing," Edgar replied, "that I've learned, it's that nobody ever _gives_ you the answers. You have to figure them out alone."

Looking away, Jimmy reached for the switchblade Edgar knew he kept in his pocket.

"Alone, huh?"

And the city went on around them.

TBC


	16. When a Cigar is not a Cigar

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

_"As Sigmund said to the red-lit bar:  
'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'."_

* * *

Edgar found his friend, as he always did, just when things couldn't get much worse. The difference: this time he had his back literally to the wall.

Jimmy was strolling by, hands in pockets, smoking a cigarette when Edgar got a glimpse of him between the matt black hair and kohl-rimmed eyes. The younger man almost didn't notice, being the self-centered ass he was, despite the desperate hands waving in his direction. That useless little…

"Jimmy! Jimmy you jerk, _help me_!"

The boy took one look at the crowd of Goths between them, two looks at the smears of black lipstick on Edgar's face, and went busting into the semicircle like a mosher from Hell. Ebony nails met a few choice targets, boots likewise into choice kneecaps, and the teen grinned widely as he bullied his way into the center, between Edgar and the half-dozen Goths. They glared at him with identical wary sneers.

"I'ma say this real slow," Jimmy started, eyeing his opponents, "'cause I know you don't listen too well. This—" he pointed over his shoulder, "—is mine. No fuckin' with him, alright? Y'mess with my stuff, The Darkness makes your afterlife _real_ Hell. Now scuttle your asses back to whatever rock you crawled out from under, 'kay?"

The little mob narrowed their eyes and looked like they wanted to argue—but Jimmy raised a brow and blew smoke in their direction, and they wavered.

"Well?"

One by one, they stepped back and disappeared around the corner.

Edgar breathed a sigh of relief, finally relaxing against the brick behind him. Oh man, that had been freaky—one of those girls looked like she could have been his student, which was _so_ disturbing. And, whatever happened to taking no for an answer? If they invite him to do something illicit in a bar and he says no, that should be the end of it right? Wrong. It seemed that he'd learned interpersonal communication all backwards.

"Why?" he asked, rubbing the little indents that his glasses made. "I didn't do a thing! I didn't! Why do all the freaks love me so much?"

Jimmy grinned. "Well, today you just happen to be wearin' unusually dark attire… an' have you _seen_ the way you walk? 'S like you're beggin' to get fucked. You move your hips like a stripper! Lucky you haven't attracted any rapists yet."

"You mean any _more_ of them."

"…Oops. Yeah. Well, anyways, you're safe now."

Edgar pushed off the wall, carefully, wiping at the smears of lipstick he could still feel on his cheek. Eww… "How come they listened to you? No offense, but you're not exactly the most fearsome kid on the block."

A disappointed look flitted across his face for a moment before he glanced toward the street corner, contemplative. "They knew me back on Earth. I kinda had this thing going with the Goths—I wasn't one of _them_, y'know, but I was like them. Same clothes, same clubs sometimes. Like… street cred. But with fishnet gloves." He frowned at the empty corner. "Johnny probably killed them."

"Does _anybody_ die of natural causes in this town?" Edgar wondered, mostly to himself. It was eerie, the way that his murderer sank those emaciated fingers into every corner of the universe.

Jimmy shrugged and breathed a cloud of smoke, stepping off down the street. Edgar followed, because that was what he was supposed to do and he really didn't mind. It wasn't like he needed to be anywhere else. If Jimmy wanted him then Jimmy would have him, and that was the natural state of things as far as Edgar was concerned. And, even though he talked big, the theif somehow managed to be there for him too-just like now.

"When did you start smoking?" he asked, looking sideways at the cigarette between Jimmy's lips.

"Since it made me look badass," the teen replied, leaving the 'duh' unspoken. At Edgar's _I'm still waiting_ look, he went on: "Okay, 's like that street cred thing I mentioned, yeah? Goths smoke. Pimps smoke. I smoke. Sometimes. Tastes good, and people take you seriously. Besides," he breathed, sliding the cigarette out with two fingers, "it makes me look sexy, don't you think?"

Edgar had to admit, with his lips slightly open and smoky, the younger man did look… alluring. It took a lot of beating back hardwired denial to admit that, but it was true. He felt something press against his mouth and looked down—Jimmy's fingers, and the end of his cigarette.

"Wanna drag?" Jimmy asked, eyes dark and amused.

Edgar jerked back and took a deep breath—catching some smoke in there—and closed his eyes for a second. Oookay, the last time he let Jimmy seduce him, they ended up balancing on the ledge of absolute ruin for much longer than Edgar ever wanted to again. Even if the teen looked sexy as hell right then, it was just not worth the leap of faith that could very well end in an eternity of plummeting abyss.

"Er… I don't smoke."

Jimmy raised a brow, and Edgar had to wonder if he was as transparent as he felt.

"I mean," the older man rambled, "it's not as if I've got any moral objection to it now that we're dead, and since I drink there's no reason why I couldn't smoke I suppose, after all they're both drugs, but I never really learned how and it just doesn't seem worth it to pick up the habit now and anyways—"

The cigarette returned to Jimmy's mouth and he shrugged again, hooking an arm around Edgar's arm.

"Fine, fine," he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep drag.

For a brief, embarrassing moment, Edgar wanted to be the smoke in his partner's lungs with the kind of passion that turns a man's blood into fire.

"But," Jimmy went on, "you can't run forever."

It was painfully clear that he wasn't talking about the cigarette.

-o-

Edgar went back to the Lows, and this time he brought his own string. It was kind of strange to do this without Jimmy at his side—true though, that went for a lot of things. In any case, the boy was a suspicious wreck when it came to people in general and did not make great company for a how-do-you-do kind of visit, which was understandable, when you considered the things he'd done and the things that had been done to him—and _how_ in the world did Edgar end up being best friends/in love with a Columbine wannabe?

For the second time, Edgar wondered what would have happened if Jimmy had been his student. Maybe he could have gotten through to the real problem in time, maybe he could have given the teen somewhere to turn besides the local serial killer. He wouldn't even mind getting hit on by a student, not if it meant saving somebody's life and sanity. A few people's lives, actually, if you thought about the girls Jimmy had murdered.

Between shelves of plywood, Edgar stopped and sighed. You can't pick who you love, he supposed. The crimes shifted uneasily in the back of his conscience, daring him to accept them as his own, but he _did_ know better. He was not the guilty one. Still, every word he'd said to Jimmy at the ball was true, from trusting him to loving him despite it all. Edgar did not believe in Eternal Damnation.

_Everyone gets a second chance. If they'll take it._

Jimmy seemed to have been doing some thinking himself, if the contemplative looks were anything to judge by. In fact, that was why Edgar had ventured off to the labyrinth when he had… to give the boy some time. Alone. And to do a little thinking himself.

Edgar reached that fork in the road and glanced left at the darkness, then right at the light. He'd stand by the old decision, but he was still curious… maybe just a peek in the other direction? The dead man slid up against the racks of paint cans and curled his fingers around the corner, sidestepping closer. For a brief moment, he was reminded of the first time he left Heaven. The right aisle glowed brightly, almost comfortingly, and the closest shelves were stocked with flat-screen TVs—a luxury he'd only heard of before, considering his teacher's paycheck.

It did look like a nice way to go. Still, something made him cautious, so that when he took a step farther it was only one foot that hit the tile.

And it was a good thing too.

The square below his sneaker gave way almost immediately, tumbling out from under him and into some abyss as he threw himself backwards. He brushed an adjacent tile, falling away, and it too dropped into the darkness without a moment's hesitation. Edgar's superficial heart jackhammered in his chest as if it was trying to resurrect him.

Ooookay. He was very, very glad he'd listened to Jimmy now.

The murdered man wasted no time heading round the other direction, into the creepy safeness of the dark. The rat people (and the giant cockroach) were apparently sleeping this time through, so Edgar went without distraction into the maze. It wasn't long before he was once again faced with the little yellow Helpdesk sign, and the bottles of mace and turpentine. He smiled.

"Bondye?"

"Ah, Edgar!" the deep, accented voice called back. "I knew you'd return."

Edgar stepped into the light of the labyrinth center, brow raised. "So… how do you know my name?"

Bondye shrugged. "You mentioned it last time."

"Oh." Damn his memory. Luckily, Jimmy wasn't here to interject any "ditz" comments. "Well, how are you?"

The black man grinned up from his chair, boots once again propped on the table. A little pocket knife in his right hand caught the florescent light, shining only a bit brighter than the apple in his left. "Always the same—except when I'm not. Want a slice?"

The lighter man leaned against the desk, smiling too. "Are you sure you want to share?"

"Of course I do," Bondye replied, offering up a rough wedge. "But don't tell no one."

"Can do." Edgar grabbed the offering and popped it into his mouth. "So I took a look at the other side of that big split in the maze… and I nearly fell through the floor. Do you have any idea what's down there? Or why it's there at all?"

It wasn't too far fetched to imagine a sort of Alice in Wonderland ending, tumbling down and through the other side of something, maybe into the real world. Maybe into the actual _Hellish_ portion of Hell. Just because he hadn't seen it yet didn't mean it couldn't exist.

"The universe is big, Edgar," Bondye mused, "much bigger than it seems. The world is narrow, but the universe is wide. There are layers, you see, on top of layers folded into folds of reality. There's more in Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in your philosophy, hey? But everything is a circle, everything link itself up with everything else. Ain't too hard to see. Now that floor there, it leads you back to the beginning, back full circle. You can walk into that light as many times as you like and you still won't go nowhere."

"Symbolism?" Edgar asked, taken aback.

"Of course. Everything is symbols. This apple here is a symbol!" the mysterious man pointed to the fruit in his left hand. "And so are you. In this world, everything means something else and everything teach you somehow. Learning is the top priority."

Edgar contemplated that concept for a moment. "I've been wondering, actually…" he began, hesitant. "Maybe you'll know. People don't stay in Hell forever, do they? If it's not a punishment, then what's the point of it?"

Bondye laughed. "You know full well the answer to that question. It is too a punishment! But payback isn't one size fits all, either, and I learned long ago not to take no stock in revenge for the sake of revenge. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind! Penalties are teaching tools, just that, and every lesson gets learned different. Your friend told you about the ride here?"

"You mean with the pride and the satisfaction. Yes, I remember."

A knowing look glittered in the Haitian's eyes. "Then you have your answer. You could imagine what it's like, if you wanted. Self-loathing and regret, questions of what's wrong and what's right, memories of the people you hurt… That's how it goes. A lot of people get drunk after they arrive, trying to forget the sensation."

(But how many of them get drunk in a giant taco? Edgar gave his friend an imaginary knock upside the head.)

"In any case," Bondye went on, "that's not what you were really asking. What you _really_ want to know is… Do you get a second chance?"

"Wha…" Edgar started, then thought better of it. There were only so many questions you could ask at once. "It's not for me, it's for my friend. He needs one."

"Oh, but you get one too. See, Hell is all about second chances. If you need one, you find your way here… damned or not. And you, Edgar Vargas, will get your three dues. Death, a soul mate, and a second chance, heh? Not," he laughed, "necessarily in that order for everyone."

There was silence for a moment, as the lights overhead buzzed and the apple, red and round, glinted.

"Who _are _you_?_" Edgar finally asked.

"I am what I am."

The lighter man tapped the boots resting on the tabletop. "And how, exactly, did you end up in Hell?"

"You mean, what I did wrong? Trusted somebody I ought not to have trusted. Went a little too hasty in my judgment. Was a hypocrite. The list goes on, and I don't feel like reliving it. The point is, I learned from it all. That's the point."

Riddles were apparently the man's language of choice, spinning so naturally that it was only now Edgar realized he'd found himself tangled up in a web of questions. It was a good thing he hadn't come here looking for answers…

"So." Bondye smiled and sliced off another cut of apple. "You go back to your friend now, hey? You think about beginnings and endings, and you think about where one turns into the other… and you think about what you really want. You don't know yet, but soon enough, you're gonna need to."

"Do you just know everything?" Edgar asked him, half exasperated, half intrigued.

Bondye laughed again. "Now, what'd be the fun in that?"

-0-

The first sign of things to come was Jimmy's hand on Edgar's ass. In public.

"…What the hell?"

Jimmy grinned evilly. His fingers wormed into Edgar's back pocket, unfazed, and the older man kind of looked around helplessly, trying to think of an escape route.

"Stop it!" he hissed. "If people see you hitting on me, we're going to get lynched—and I don't particularly feel like getting hung because you're a horny idiot."

"They don't hang people down here," Jimmy replied, eyeing their reflection in a passing window.

"There's a first time for everything," Edgar shot back. He reached around and pulled Jimmy's hand out of his pants, searching surreptitiously for any witnesses. Oh god, the boy really knew how to push him.

"Y'know what we should do?" Jimmy started, pretty much out of the blue.

"What?"

Jimmy slid his hands into his own pockets, still grinning. "We should totally get drunk."

The first thing that popped into Edgar's head was that it wasn't five o'clock yet—and then he remembered that there were much bigger problems with that idea, mainly pertaining to the dubious state of their relationship, and also the fact that a drunk Jimmy was sure to be a dangerous thing. The last and only time he'd seen the boy intoxicated, it resulted in a broken leg and a very sore head—it also resulted in their friendship, but that wasn't the _point_.

"Er… I really don't think that's a good idea."

"C'mon man, don't be a pussy. It'll be awesome."

Edgar looked at him. "You know I'm twenty-seven, don't you? I was in and out of high school a long time ago."

"Fine then," Jimmy replied. He hooked two sets of fingers around the front of Edgar's jeans and pulled him into an alley, ignoring the protests. "Please?" he whispered, now much closer than he had any right to be. His breath brushed Edgar's lips, sending a buzzing through the skin, and his fingertips burned with impossible heat... or maybe that was on the other end.

Rather stunned, the older man did his best not to meet his friend's shameless bedroom eyes. "…You think you're very clever, don't you?"

Jimmy slid his fingers up Edgar's stomach.

"Okay, okay!" The older man squirmed against the unforgiving wall. "I'll get drunk with you, just back away!"

Jimmy winked and ever so slowly removed his hand from the underside of Edgar's shirt. The older man suddenly remembered how to breathe, and tried not to make a big show of sucking in as much oxygen as his lungs could handle. Oh, his will was not faring well under all this pressure, and it had only gotten worse since the ball. He still felt like smacking himself every time he remembered that.

Jimmy dragged him back into the street, suggesting different sorts of liquor and punches, everything from black Russians to tequila-wine mix. It was a little dizzying to hear all the different combinations he'd apparently tried, not to mention terrifying when he started to talk about _that one time_ he tried such and such. Who knew you could make tea out of marijuana?

"You're a punkass," Edgar decided, giving Jimmy a squinty, uncomfortably look.

Jimmy giggled. "Thanks man. I try."

"Hhm. You make my habits seem positively Mormon in comparison. How did you even get this stuff? You didn't have parents to steal from—" Edgar ticked off a finger, "—you didn't have money, and you didn't have a license or a legal drinking age. I'm curious."

Jimmy's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "It's kinda 'mazing what people just don't care about. I had a fake license an' it didn't look a thing like me, but nobody cared. Not where I went. Anyway, most of the time I scored booze off parties an' friends… well, y'know what I mean."

If there was something bitter in his tone, Edgar couldn't decide just why. He looked down the street, sparing a moment to notice the woman glaring at them from a stoop. That was happening more and more often, the anger that didn't seem to come from any faux pas either of them had committed. At this point, he was pretty sure it went beyond the general air of contempt that the damned wore like a classy perfume.

"Jimmy, are you sure you didn't do anything to publicly embarrass us?"

"God _damn,_ Edgar! I told you, I haven't done nothin'! Did _you_?"

Edgar flashed back to an episode he'd had a day or so ago, involving one of the worse tempered demons and a Bentley.

"Nooo. I don't think so."

Jimmy kicked sideways and left a bruise on his friend's ankle. "If you're the one that caused the problem, you owe me a blowjob."

Edgar's eyes went wide. "Pardon me?"

"You heard me," the younger man insisted. "It turns out you've been accusing me for nothin' the whole time? You're gonna suck me off _so_ hard."

There was a moment of silence while Edgar tried to breathe properly again. This time, there was a little problem of his lungs collapsing at the image that exploded all over his brain—very uncomfortable image, oh god were those _sound effects_?

"I will _not_," Edgar finally responded, albeit weakly.

Jimmy had a voracious smile a mile wide, arm hooked even more tightly around Edgar's. "Nah-ah-ah. No backing out now."

"…I have feeling you're about to come out with an exceedingly dirty pun any second now, and I have to ask you to please _not."_

"You're in denial so bad. I already told you you're gay _an'_ that you got a thing for me—how many other revelations I gotta toss at you?"

As always, Edgar thanked God for his darker complexion as the burning in his face reached a lovely crescendo. If Jimmy could see his blush, he would never, ever live it down. He might as well go the whole nine yards and write a sonnet about how he wanted—ugh, any of the things he wanted. They were all equally embarrassing. Maybe he'd start with that I-wish-I-was-your-cigarette moment from yesterday.

"When you can convince me that I enjoy Shakespeare, then you'll be done."

Jimmy raised a brow. "You don't like Shakespeare? What kinda teacher _were _you?"

"One who's made uncomfortable by innuendo in a text book," Edgar shot back. "Have you ever _read_ that stuff? I mean, have you really looked at it?"

"Uh… no."

"Then trust me," Edgar said, "it's a mess of dirty puns and sexual allusions. It was written for the commoners too, you know, and you'd think the whole of London had STDs from the way that man wrote. And there's a monologue by Iago that makes me _very_ uncomfortable."

Jimmy looked at him. "By _uncomfortable_, I'm thinkin' you mean 'hot an' bothered'."

Edgar scowled. "I can't believe they made me read it for the whole class. That sort of thing belongs in the privacy of one's own head."

The laughter startled him, tumbling out of Jimmy's grinning lips. "Oh God," he gasped, "I can just imagine… oh my… shit, I bet you got a hard-on just readin' it… in the middle of… Oh, you gotta recite it for me."

The older man groaned. "I hate you. Fine. If imagining me in awkward situations does it for you, then who am I to get in the way?"

"This is so great," Jimmy kept laughing, "I'd've killed to be there. I can just see it—bet you had your legs all crossed an' your voice was breakin'. Edgar, please, you _gotta_. How'd it go?"

The sad part was that he _did_ still remember a good portion of the speech. Not only had it been traumatizing, but some masochistic streak had sent him back months—and again years—later, to reread the passage. Man, that streak had a lot of power over him...

"Okay, okay," Edgar marshaled his memory, "let me see what I can get. It went something like…

I lay with Cassio lately,  
And troubled with a raging digit  
Could not sleep…  
In sleep I heard him mutter  
"sweet Desdemona, let us hide our loves"  
and he would grip and wring me,  
cry "oh sweet creature,"  
then kiss me hard,  
as if he pulled kisses by the roots  
that grew from my lips, threw his leg over my thigh…"

Jimmy started laughing again. "You read that for the _class_?"

Edgar groaned again. "My teacher thought I didn't participate enough, so she gave me the villain's part. The villain just happens to have an even worse obsession with sex than you do. And, good god, I had to learn all this stuff in college about Elizabethan slang… 'threw his leg over my thigh'? That literally means 'fucked me'. I do not like Shakespeare."

The arm wrapped around Edgar's went limp as Jimmy practically fell down laughing, hands splayed on the concrete. "Oh shit. I got a whole new 'preciation for the classics now. That's… fuckin' awesome. Hey... hey Edgar, If I—If I read Shakespeare for you, will you fuck me?"

Edgar kicked him, hard.

"You're an asshole. I can't trust you with a thing, can I?"

"Hah… you don't mind. You wouldn't tell me if you didn't want me to mess with you."

Jimmy went on giggling, but Edgar went cold. He supposed it was true—it matched up with the previous revelations, what he'd dubbed the Swimming Pool effect after that historic girlfriend. But that Jimmy could read him so easily, without even pausing to stop the laughter, without a question or a warning? That was unnerving.

"You're so…" Jimmy went on, stopping to catch his breath, "…repressed. Oh, okay. We can talk about somethin' else."

"Thank you for your consideration." Edgar rolled his eyes. He started to carry on with the sarcasm, but just then a fortuitous sign caught his eye and he smiled despite himself. "Looks like we hit our destination."

The badly painted sign was in the shape of a beer bottle—an unusually phallic one too, but perhaps that was just his Jimmy-inspired paranoia—and it swung over the door in the non-existent wind. They dashed inside, arguing over what sorts of bottles to take back with them, a bit like children in a candy store because, quite honestly, Edgar loved to drink maybe more than Jimmy did. It made everything pleasant and soft around the edges.

Wine was a must-have. Jimmy talked him into whiskey, and vodka, and they both reached for the cognac at the same time. Pretty soon they had a hand basket full of the various bottles, which Jimmy kept trying to sneak beer into. Beer was not acceptable for this venture, but apparently the concept wasn't sinking in. The resulting tug-o-war nearly spilled half the closest shelf and made Edgar question his own sanity for the upteenth time that day.

"The great thing about Hell," the younger man said, dropping their basket onto the counter, "is how they don't got an age limit."

"Careful with those… Yes, it is convenient I suppose. It's not like you'll ever get any older…" The dead man whipped out his trusty blue card and handed it to the clerk, who was giving Jimmy a look of growing suspicion.

"Do I know you?" the clerk asked, tapping tobacco-stained fingers on the countertop.

Jimmy squinted at him. "Nah, I don't think so."

The purchase rang up without any further hiccups, but the look of suspicion never faded and it made Edgar itchy to leave. He grabbed the bags and pulled his companion back into the street, now more paranoid than ever, and headed for a place that they could get drunk without interruption or—hopefully—witness. He felt a little bad, as if he was doing something heavily sinful, though he'd gotten drunk tons of times before and he couldn't quite pin what the problem was. He was, as he kept reminding Jimmy, twenty-seven now and forever.

His companion had the first bottle cracked before they even reached the destination, and he was diving in for a second go as Edgar pulled him under a staircase. It was a good place for drinking, and he'd used it once before. Located at the other end of an alley, it led up into an abandoned building of some sort and the six flights of rusting black metal curled above them, leaving just enough room for an Edgar-sized man to sit comfortably. Jimmy seemed to approve.

"Dude, you _do_ realize that... nobody'd hear you scream…"

Edgar snatched the bottle from his hands. "Can you go _five_ minutes without being creepy?"

"Don't see why I'd want to."

And with that, the rounds began.

One bottle in, Edgar found himself talking about his mother—how she died when he was a teenager, how she was so peaceful about it, how that was when his religious affiliation started. Jimmy had a sort of unreadable look as he spoke, as if there were countless layers of processes going on in his head.

Two bottles in, Jimmy decided to reciprocate, spinning tales of all the stupid exploits he'd gotten into during what would have been his senior year. They spanned from a thoroughly unpleasant girl named Clarissa to one explicit story involving the school hallway after-hours. He'd offered to regale Edgar with further adventures of the sort but Edgar, being Edgar and very much embarrassed, changed the subject.

Three bottles in… Edgar decided he was drunk.

Jimmy slipped between the older man's legs and rested his arms on conveniently placed knees. "… Y'ever really think you'd love a guy like me?"

"Don' be stupid. I didn' even know I was gay until you… _informed_ me. But if I had," Edgar paused to think about it, "nooo, I don't think I'd have picked anything like you at all. Anybody. 'M sure he would've been… nice guy, upstanding even. My age. Maybe older. Instead I get… punk-ass juvenile deli… delinquent, rap sheet as tall as the devil 'imself."

The younger man giggled, twice as insanely as usual, and his black fingernails curled around the bottom of Edgar's shirt. "Y' don' want nobody like that anyways. Borin' as Hell… Ah, Edgar, y' look drunk. _Awesome…_ Should do it more often. Make's y' look sexy... kinda _vulnerable_."

Edgar watched the teen warily. "Don' try and pull anything. I have a high alc… alcohol tolerance. B'sides, your rape 'n pillage days are over, kid. 'M not having any of that."

A wicked gleam sparked in Jimmy's eye. "Uh-huh. Well if I ain't takin'… maybe I oughta _give_…"

Edgar had an instant and sinking suspicion of what exactly that meant, but before he could translate the feeling into action—damn his reflexes—Jimmy's fingers were working at his jeans with startling coordination, leaving Edgar a layer more exposed than he wanted. Ah, now he remembered why he hadn't wanted to do this. Jimmy's eyes met his, burning with an intoxication of a totally different kind—he licked his lips, and that was when the full realization dawned. The older man nearly moaned-but didn't, thank God.

"Ohhh no," Edgar cut in, breathless, finally managing to capture the errant hands. "Not having any of that."

Jimmy gave him a frustrated look, and he pretended not to have a painful erection pressing against their joined hands. He was getting a lot of practice at that.

"Y' always say _no_," the younger man complained. "What th' hell y' _want_ me to do? I dunno… I dunno how to do anythin' else."

In the safety of Edgar's head, time stopped for a moment. If Jimmy… maybe it was something different to him… Jimmy understood sex, treated it almost like a language. It was… communication where words failed him. Where understanding failed him. Maybe this was the best-the only way he knew how to show...

_You don't understand this either, do you?_ Edgar wondered, drinking in every detail from the burn in Jimmy's eyes to the press of black nails against his own skin. _You're trying to tell me…. This is how you explain what no one ever taught you._

"Here," he murmured. "Here…"

Edgar slid his fingers so they linked with his companion's, like puzzle pieces, and pulled them up. Jimmy followed the motion, reluctantly, until the two men were eye to eye and Edgar's slightly heavy breath filled the space between them. There was something surreal about it too, as the older man pulled them still closer. Their lips brushed—_god_, sparks like electricity, burning everywhere—and then they were kissing, Jimmy's body pressed as tightly as possible against him.

_Let me try to explain… maybe I can show you…_

And the last bottle was forgotten.

TBC


	17. Interlude

_"Interlude"_

Some things are just bound to catch up with you, no matter which way you turn.

* * *

The first time he saw Jimmy, Edgar Vargas had one boy in an arm-lock and another boy curled up, swearing at his feet. He didn't really get a good look at the punk in question until reinforcements came bursting up the stairs with walkie-talkies swinging, and managed to drag the two standing teens far enough apart that violence was no longer an issue. It was then, backing away from one opponent, that Edgar got his first impression of the other. One Jimmy Eurige, restrained by two more teachers, met his gaze for a single moment—all rage and spiked hair and tense, repressed fury.

Edgar was blinded.

They dragged the kid away, and one of Edgar's collegues patted him on the back offering pleased and somewhat surprised complements for the man's quick action. None of it registered, though, because his mind was still staring down the delinquent with the dark, dark eyes.

Who _was_ that kid?

The first thing he did when he got back to his office was send an email out to his friend—to use the term loosely—at the main office. He wanted to know what exactly he'd broken up that morning, and who exactly had been involved. Results proved interesting.

Fight: two against one.

Responding Party: Chad Brighton and Joe Manuel. Senior and junior respectively. History of petty misdemeanors.

Initial Aggressor: Jimmy Eurige, senior. Recently transferred to the academy and in that time accumulated three detentions and a warning for a fight just off school grounds.

Edgar leaned back in his chair, eyes fixed on the photograph. Something about the smattering of freckles and the crow-black spikes of hair had him mesmerized, and he could sense a story behind that forever-frozen expression. Hell if he could name it, but something was pulling him like a magnet and he dearly wanted to know why.

So, when the academy suggested—suggested being a loose term—that it was about time this Jimmy kid got some hands-on therapy, Edgar couldn't even pretend to complain. He simply let Damon know that he'd be busy on Monday evenings from here on out and grabbed a couple more files for some now-legitimate research.

Farther probing proved no less intriguing. His previous schools counted one public and two Christian, which implied that Jimmy had not been sent here for the same reason as most of his peers. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Eurige didn't much care about religious affiliation or lack thereof. If Edgar could venture to guess, he'd say that Jimmy's obviously wealthy parents had simply wanted him out of the house for one reason or another, and the Academy of Science was a good boarding school—close enough to drive to if you had time, from their isolated homestead, but far enough away to guarantee no further mingling of the family.

Fingers hovering over the mouse, Edgar debated something with himself. While far be it from him to turn down an interesting subject, that intense feeling of the day before had him still wary. There would be no inspecting of causation—he'd years ago decided against examination of anything internal in case the results were not-so favorable—but the sensation was nonetheless just familiar enough to put him on guard.

Something was afoot.

* * *

Edgar had first managed to nab a long-term job at the age of twenty-five, after spending a year as a social worker and four before that helping on and off with the local mental hospital. You could call it a sort of natural nitch, the psychology field, which stemmed from an innate fascination with problems and an equally innate sense of compassion.

He was a natural.

When he was fourteen, his mother's best friend had suffered a psychotic break in the middle of a complicated illicit affair with her boss, sending Madre Vargas down to the hospital with a basket and a paperback on what would come to be a regular trip. Edgar went along that first time, and most times after that, not because he particularly liked Madre's friend but rather because his mother had asked him to.

"Anne's crazy," Edgar had protested, thinking back to one book in particular which he'd finished a week before—_The Red Dragon_. "She's dangerous. And besides, Madre, you know I don't like her."

Mrs. Vargas had turned around from her jewelry table and looked her son dead in the eye. "I will _not_ have you insulting my friends, Edgar. Anne loves me and she's always been there for me, and now —" she sighed. "Edgar, you take care of the people you love no matter what. Anne needs me now. You're coming along because I'm not leaving you alone in the house, and that's that."

And so Edgar found himself in his first psych ward. What memories remain generally concern the lack of flowers or visitors anywhere, and the hospital scents that seemed to be thinner there than you might expect. Patients mumbling to themselves or staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling were pretty much everywhere, and he remembered thinking that someone should fix them—that surely _someone_ could fix them.

After that, the few empty shelves in the house started filling up with psychology books—everything from Freud's works to old college texts that his dad picked up at a used-book store. When he was eighteen, one of his father's clients hooked him up with a small job at the same psych ward where Anne had landed years before. That job had been hard, emotionally and physically. He remembered that his favorite nurse had left somewhere along the way, after she suffered a back injury holding down a particularly volatile patient. She never did come back.

That was about the same time his mother died. About the same time he started attending church.

If the ward ever taught him anything, it was that he couldn't handle the inevitability in its sterile walls. Edgar wasn't a weak man, but there's only so much a caring person can take before they burn out completely. The patients didn't get better. No one expected them to.

So the young man had stepped away from the profession, sinking back into the world of books. For a long time, the ward had been the only place where he really sank his nails into the world and left a mark, where people knew his name and he knew theirs. The next couple years left him cocooned in the world of literature, paper theories, hypothetical universes. Healing. And after graduation, he got a job as a social worker. That almost killed whatever he'd managed to resurrect after the ward and his mother. One particular memory stood out, of a horribly obese woman in the back of his car, screaming that the seatbelt was killing her baby.

She wasn't pregnant.

It didn't take him long to figure out that his latest job was spiritual suicide. At that point, he sat down and thought about what exactly he _could_ do, to make a difference in the world without wringing himself dry. He couldn't take the final result of mental decay, the end of the line psych wards where the incurable went uncured. He couldn't take the sheer insanity of social work, not without cracking. And then what use would he be?

But maybe… the beginning?

If he could cut into the beginning, where the problems started, he knew he could make a difference. He _was _good, after all. And he wanted to _help_; he wanted to do something, something that he could devote his life to. Make a difference. The eyes that had stared at him through hospital windows once upon a time, there was no escaping that. And with such things in mind, Edgar set a number of balls rolling—one of which landed him with a rather unique position at the fanciest school in town.

Academy of Science—the only anti-denominational school Edgar'd ever heard of. That was their hook, the atheist gig, with a liberal dose of _boarding school_ appeal and high academic standards. It was really a fluke that he ended up working there right out of college, mostly owing to a rash of suicides and one panicked man with the stack of resumes. They needed a councilor. In the end, everybody gets lucky at some point during their life and Edgar figured it was about time he got his turn anyways.

So, the office was nice. The class he'd picked up last year—psychology class, of course—was unexpectedly fun, and there was his little _side project_, and he was making good money all things considered. But.

But.

Something niggled at the back of his head, every so often—a kind of fuzzy nonentity lurking in that place where conscious fades into subconscious mind. It was a lot like feeling empty. He couldn't remember it from before his mother's death, but hey, maybe he'd just forgotten. The memory is a rather unreliable machine. So the sensation caught up with him between classes, drank tea with him after the last bell rang, took up that empty seat in his apartment, sat beside him in church. It rested cold fingers on his chest in the darkness, when he tried to sleep and let reality go. Life was good, other than that, but…

As content as Edgar Vargas was, and as lucky as he had been, the sensation—more of a _lack_ than a something—would not rest. A life without it seemed, by this point, beyond even fantasies. Maybe if he knew what the heck it was or where it came from, but at the time, he was basically clueless.

And so, the most startling thing about his first run-in with Jimmy had been that, at the moment when their eyes met, how _not_empty everything felt. The change in perception was as if he had been watching life through a widescreen, and suddenly the boy with the eyeliner and the dark, dark eyes came along and flipped it to full screen.

So you can understand if he was curious. And you can understand if he might have wanted, just a little bit, to have that full screen view back again. There was a problem here, a puzzle, and Edgar was good at those.

Edgar was a natural.

* * *

Monday arrived bright and tense, for Edgar at least, and he avoided talking with his coworkers for the better part of the day just in case they might let something slip that he didn't want to hear. Apparently Jimmy was free seventh period, which put Edgar in the interesting position of counseling during teaching hours. The appointment was scheduled for half way through the period, meaning that Edgar was duty-honor-compulsion bound to spend every free minute before the kid's arrival cleaning and reexamining papers and generally trying to prepare for whatever might fly his way.

Nothing would have prepared him anyways.

The teen came bursting through his door at ten minutes past two, early, boots pounding on the tile like irritated hammers. He marched down the rows of desks and threw himself into the empty seat across from his new councilor, scowled and threw his boots up on the tabletop. Edgar raised a brow. In the back of his head, he realized his heart rate had just sped up and his vision was a touch fuzzy around the edges- Adrenaline. Interesting.

"What an impressive set of manners you have there," the older man said, pushing the—rather nice—pair of shoes off his desk.

The teen snorted. "Manners are for pussies."

With a quick sleight of hand, Edgar hid the rosary he'd been worrying just before Jimmy burst in. Old habits die hard, and he'd always figured that you should never discard something useful anyway. "Well then," he replied, "allow me to drag you down to my effeminate level. I'm Mr. Vargas—Edgar Vargas. Pleased to meet you."

Jimmy eyed the proffered hand with blatant suspicion. "You already know who I am. Fucking file's on your desk."

The teacher pushed his hand out a little farther. "Psychology lesson for the day: the point of an introduction isn't just to tell me your name; it's to give me a taste test of your personality. The handshake..." he smiled, "...is to make sure you're unarmed."

That must have thrown the kid a bit off kilter, because he tentatively took Edgar's hand and shook. A little jolt passed through the skin, racing back to his central nervous sytem for another good hit of adrenaline. Absolutely fascinating. He had a bit of insight, right then, that he might have taken one step too deep into his own problems, which was a place he'd tried very hard to avoid. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no backing out now regardless.

"Excellent," the older man murmured. "And now that I'm certain there's nothing sharp in your hands, maybe we can get down to why you're here?"

Body language says a lot more than words do—at that moment, Jimmy's whole body basically folded in on itself. Judging by the crossed arms and legs, this was going to be one tough nut to crack. Something about him reminded Edgar of a dog from his old neighborhood, one of the strays. He'd spent weeks one summer feeding it, slowly gaining its trust, only to have it balk and never return on the day when he finally tried to pet it.

He hoped Jimmy would be a little easier.

"Now, you took on two opponents at once in that fight the other day, so of course I'm obligated to ask you if you have any particular suicidal tendencies. These things have been known to start small."

Jimmy looked at him like he was crazy. "You're just gonna _ask_ me that?"

"That's a no?" Edgar made a note to himself. "You don't strike me as the type."

"What kinda psychiatrist _are_ you?"

Ah, now there's a question. Edgar looked up and caught his guest's eyes. "I am whatever you need me to be. Some people need parents, some people need enemies, some people just need a hand. I'm good at what I do."

It wasn't hard to tell that Jimmy was a little intrigued despite himself.

"So, say they need somethin' you can't give them?"

"Generally, I _can_. But, I do try to avoid the pharmaceutical venues, and we don't go in for Freudian interpretations around here."

"Freudian?"

"Sex and violence."

The student laughed out loud—the sound was slightly _off,_the kind that might raise hairs on your neck with the right background music. "But that's exactly what I need! So how'r you gonna help me out with that?"

Now it was Edgar's turn to scowl. "Fighting is what got you sent here in the first place. I'd venture to say that more of it won't do you any good."

"How 'bout the sex then?" Jimmy pressed, more interested now. "Hook me up with some fine ass? Or…" he half leered over the desk between them, "would you take care of it _personal_ like?"

Edgar picked up his desk-calendar and threw it at Jimmy's head. "Do you comprehend the fact that I'm a teacher?"

"That's not a no!" the boy crowed, leaning forward. "You know what? I bet you're gay. Y' look gay. Your desk is way too neat and you've got a manicure. Ever screw a student?"

Edgar felt his face heat up like a stovetop. "I certainly have not, would not, and will not. Also, I'll thank you not to make inquiries into my personal life unless it concerns your therapy somehow. And I'm not gay," he added as an afterthought.

"Suuuure you aren't. What, don't want anybody to know? I can keep a secret, Mr. Vargas. I'm _good _at keeping secrets. Does your daddy know? He ask about your _girlfriend_? Nobody tells their father anythin', yeah? Bet he has no idea."

"Personal inquiries," Edgar repeated, narrowing his eyes. "Anything else you want to ask me, before I send you down to the deputy's office for disrespecting a teacher?"

"Deputy doesn't scare me," Jimmy laughed. "I'm not gonna be like those other kids you work with. 'M not half as easy to read, an' there isn't a fuckin' thing you can do for me anyways."

"Is that so?" Edgar asked. He reached into his bag and pulled out a notepad. "Alright then. Jimmy Eurige, age eighteen. Gay or bisexual, suffering emotional strain, has father issues. Past suicidal thoughts, though none currently."

"What the fuck?" his student demanded, standing up quickly. "Where the hell'd you get that shit?"

"Also, desperate need for acceptance," Edgar added, setting down his pen. He looked up at Jimmy, a sardonic smile on his face. "Do you think I'm wrong?"

"Course you are," the teen answered hotly. "You're a fuckin' quack too."

"Then I'll see you Friday afternoon, and then on Monday. That is, if you want to prove me wrong."

Jimmy looked at him, the picture of a stunned kid. His black eyeliner formed an 'O' around his wide eyes, nicely matching his slack jaw. The teacher packed away his notes and allowed himself a grin, thinking of all the interesting—and doubtlessly annoying—things that were to come. He was looking forward to it. Oh yes, he was looking forward to it.

"I don't know what you need, yet," he remarked, looking up again, "but I assure you that when I find out, you won't say no."

"Uh…" After a second, Jimmy visibly shifted back into his usual asshole-nonchalance. "Whatever. Here's hopin' what I need is a good hard fucking, eh Mr. Vargas? Sure wouldn't say no to that."

As Jimmy strode out the door—where did the boy learn to swish his hips like that?—Edgar decided he was going to need a whole new set of rules for dealing with this particular kid. While that had actually gone quite well, and he was still coming down off the (inexplicable) adrenaline high, there was no doubting that this wasn't going to be like anything he'd experianced before. He was going to need a whole new set of reflexes.

He was also… going to need a better come back than "I'm not gay."

* * *

In the teacher's lounge, Tuesday, Edgar had a conversation with Angela. History teachers are an interesting breed, and Angela Fisher happened to be running in that theme—as if the average Academy instructor wasn't strange enough by nature. She was also about the same level of jerk that Edgar had come to expect from the universe.

"So, Edgar," she started, sidling up beside him.

"Yes?"

The man made a grab for the sugar, noticing too late how very low the stock was. Angela beat him to it, snatching up the last two packets for her fruit salad—honestly, who put sugar on fruit salad? Edgar stared morosely at his own unsweetened tea.

"I heard you're taking on _The_ _Darkness_."

Edgar looked up, puzzled. "The what now?"

"The Eurige kid," Angela qualified, pouring sugar over her cantaloupe. "Heard some of his pinhead friends call him that a while back. His car parks next to mine—one of these days, he's gonna scratch the paint and I'm gonna scratch his eyes out."

That was… interesting, Edgar thought. "So you know him."

"Yeah. He's got my sixth period. He isn't stupid, but he's damn near close. Spends the whole time arguing with Clarissa."

"Williams?"

"Yeah, her. Think you know what his problem is?"

Obviously, client confidentiality meant nothing to the woman. Though Edgar could imagine that he'd be just as interested in her place—who, after all, could resist the puzzle that was Jimmy? Not to mention, there was a kind of black charisma, something twisted and compelling about the boy with the dark, dark eyes.

"I've only had one meeting with him," the male teacher replied, aloud, "and technically, I'm not allowed to tell you anything he says."

Angela sniffed. "Not like you owe him anything. Kid is a bad influence on the whole damn school, if you ask me. He got into a fight with Brad _Olsen_."

"The, uh, the one in sewing club?"

"Yes," his coworker replied, moral indignation thick and pungent. "Hate crime, I'm sure of it."

"Er—" Edgar grabbed his cup of bitter tea and headed back for his room, "—well, it was certainly _some_ kind of hate."

But personally, he figured it had a lot more to do with a proclivity for pink polos than sexual preference.

Those polos annoyed him a little too.

* * *

Friday afternoon, Edgar was humming the theme to _Moonlighting_ when Jimmy burst in the door and fell into the seat across from him. A confidential file quickly found itself deposited in a random drawer.

"So how come you don't have one of those couch things?" the teen demanded right off, sliding on one fishnet glove.

Edgar shrugged. "Once again, too Freudian. What we do here isn't worth much unless I can see you."

Jimmy kicked back in his chair, managing to look quite at home in someone else's office. "So, I'm guessin' you prefer missionary."

Edgar almost responded with an _I'm not evangelist_. Then he took a second look at the smirk directed his way and groaned. "You really are a teenage boy, aren't you?"

Holding up his hands, the student replied, "I'm just studying up for when you decide to take me up on my offer."

"What offer?"

"Wait, wait," Jimmy pointed a finger, "haven't got there yet." The boy slid forward and leaned across the table, chin resting on his hands. Something amused sparked in his eyes. "So, Teach," he said with absurd formality, "wanna fuck me into the floor?"

"No!" Edgar shouted, exasperated.

"No floor? Fine, mattress then. My place or yours?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you, Jesus Christ!" The older man knocked his patient upside the head with the nearest book. It happened to be a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_. "What part of 'not gay' and 'ethical code' do you not understand?"

"How about the whole concept?" Jimmy shot back, grinning.

Edgar narrowed his eyes. "You're just doing this to distract me, aren't you?"

"Nah," the younger man responded, his smirk impossible to read, "I'm just a bitch for authority."

Edgar came very close to beating his head against the computer screen. "You're a clever little twit, I'll give you that."

A fleeting, mildly surprised look told him that not many other people would agree.

* * *

Monday afternoon, they discussed Jimmy's parents.

"Dad? Yeah, he wasn't too happy when I tried to run away. Or maybe it was 'cause I stole his car? I dunno, I never asked him."

Edgar had a cup of tea in his hands—long island tea, but sweet nonetheless—and a notepad open at his elbow. In practice, he wrote very few notes during an interview, as it tended to stunt the natural flow of conversation and it made interaction feel artificial. Besides, it had been clear since the first day that Jimmy needed a very light touch, very informal. Thus, Edgar put up with all the jabs at his sexuality and the come-ons that usually followed. After a while, the rhythm started to feel natural.

"How far did you get?" Edgar asked, peering over his tea.

"About a town away," Jimmy shrugged, eyeing the cup between him and his councilor. "Ran outta fuckin' gas, if you can believe it. Man, if I'd just remembered to fill'er up before I left, who the Hell knows where I'd be?"

"Lying in a ditch somewhere, no doubt." Edgar took sip of his tea, savoring the faint alcoholic taste as it sapped the tension out of his muscles. It was a Pavlovian response at this point, because his tolerance was far too high for a cup of laced tea to make a difference—the flavor was merely comforting. He'd had a bit of a rough day.

"Yeeeah _no_. I can fuckin' take care of myself."

"Regardless, there are a number of factors you appear not to have considered. Cash flow being one, and then quickly followed by car breakdowns, sickness, lack of destination, and the high murder count in this part of the state. Also, might I mention the homeless…?"

Jimmy changed the subject. "The hell is in your cup, Mr. Vargas?"

"…_Tea_."

"What, you English or somethin'?"

"My mother was southern. It happens to be a family tradition."

"So's marryin' bimbos," Jimmy replied, jerking a thumb towards himself. "But y' don't see me chasin' blond twats 'round the school."

Edgar ignored the profanity, a task becoming easier all the time. "That's because you're gay, Jimmy."

"Look who the fuck is talkin'," Jimmy spat back. "For your information, I like a good pair of tits as much as the next guy."

"Then why the lack of bimbos?" Edgar inquired, sensing something important.

"Just 'cause it's a family tradition doesn't make it smart. The stepmother proved that well enough for me. So, seriously, that's not tea is it?"

Fair trade was fair trade—and somehow, for all his delinquency, the kid didn't seem like the type to turn somebody in. Maybe Edgar was making a bad call, but he really wanted to trust the teen across from him. Why, he couldn't say, he only knew that he would be almost heartbroken if Jimmy turned out to be less trustworthy than he was guessing.

"It is tea," he muttered, "it's just not _all_ tea."

Jimmy looked a touch impressed. "Look who's breakin' the rules _now_, Mr. Ethical Code. Gonna let me have some?"

Edgar raised a brow. "You are _definitely _not legal."

"I'm legal in Mexico," the student protested, making grabby motions.

"We aren't _in_ Mexico, are we?"

"Well, no… but it's frickin' _tea_for cryin' out loud. B'sides, the moral ground's all the same anyways—if I'm old enough in one geographical location, I oughta be old enough in all of them."

"That's not a bad argument, actually. But you still can't have any."

Fishnetted hands clasped in front of him, Jimmy affected a disturbingly innocent look. "Please, Mr. Vargas? I won't tell no one, you know that."

Edgar looked down at his drink. In actuality, his own father had given him wine when he was fifteen, claiming that it was a Mexican custom—personally, he thought it was just his dad trying to finish off the bottle. But, Edgar had turned out alright, more or less, and it was kind of hypocritical to take the high ground on this one.

"Fine," Edgar sighed, holding out his cup.

Jimmy snatched the thing up and drank the rest, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Well, obviously he wasn't exactly new to the _aqua vida_, if that was the speed he could drink at. Edgar put a finger on the rim and told his student to slow down, at least _try_ to enjoy the taste. Jimmy gave him a look but complied, staring out the window and into the gray afternoon.

And Edgar kind of hoped that the moment would never end.

* * *

Time passed like that for a while. Mondays and Fridays, after school, Edgar slowly picking through the layer upon layer of motivation cupped in Jimmy's skull. He learned about the kid's mother, what little he could remember: she'd been Mr. Eurige's business partner, been there when he broke into the dealership trade back in the early eighties, and owned half the partnership too. She had some old money, enough to make the dream possible back when the two were just friends with some big plans and a passion for cars. Apparently, Mr. Eurige had told that story often, before he met his second wife.

Edgar learned about the student body back home, particularly the way they'd treated his patient—some of the stories came in an ironic wrapping, some of the stories came in tattered tones of repressed fury. The world that Jimmy was born in might have been a nice one, but the world that he grew up in was a pretty ugly place. The sort of place that the Columbine kids might have been familiar with.

And Edgar learned about Carmella, Hansel and Gretel's stepmother come again. He got the low down on everything from her fake nails to her two-face attitude. Hate was thick in every syllable. But though he got the full story of Mr. Eurige and Carmella's first meeting, even the unpleasant Christmases and the car that should have been the kid's, Edgar couldn't help but feel that something was missing. And judging by the way Jimmy danced around certain topics, the subtle fury when he talk about her, it was something big.

Of course, everything was tit for tat—for the mother, Edgar traded stories of his own. He talked about the tea she used to make and the stories she would tell from Cuba, which _her _mother had told to her. He talked about how bleak everything had been after she died, how he was pretty sure that her years of working with ghetto schools had worn her down to the point of cancer.

For the middle school and high school stories, he traded his own: the one girlfriend he'd had, how everybody pretty much ignored him, how sometimes he kind of wished that people would hate him because it would be better than the goddamn _invisibility_.

For Carmella, he traded a promise not to talk to anybody about anything, not even the principal. He traded insults, a blind eye, and a whole lot of genuine concern.

Mostly, he was lucky that Jimmy liked to talk about himself so much.

A couple months passed. Somewhere in the middle of November, they both stopped watching the clock. It was a pretense anyways, seeing as Edgar wasn't paid by the hour and neither of them had anywhere to go on a week night. And so, December arrived.

* * *

"Look, I'm just saying he's a creep," Damon shot back, exasperation thick in his voice.

He sat in the chair opposite Edgar, tapping a binder with a nervous finger. Edgar had long ago learned to ignore those tics, realizing that they were just a part of the boy's demeanor—always moving, talking, thinking. No patience. That was alright, though, because Edgar had patience enough for them both. And he really liked Damon. A _lot_. So he could put up with anything for the sake of their unusual friendship.

Right now, though, he was at the edges of that patience. "And _I'm_ just saying that you shouldn't judge people so quickly."

Damon's dark brown finger stopped mid-tap. "I'm not doing anything unreasonable. Have you seen the way he looks at people? It's like he's trying to figure out where to stab you first—or worse, what you'll taste like with barbeque sauce. No joke, Edgar, that guy is bad news."

"He's been through some bad stuff," Edgar replied, turning back to his folders. "He's got a right not to trust people too easily… and he is strange, I'll admit. But he's not dangerous."

Damon stood up, fist clenched around his binder. "I know you like him, for whatever reason, but I don't want you to end up regretting anything. It's your job on the line if he pulls something—and I don't trust him. I don't like the way he looks at me. Jimmy is—"

"I'm what?"

Edgar and Damon both turned to the doorway, where Jimmy himself was leaning up against the frame. His eyes were narrow, and his arms were crossed over his chest tightly, and there was something disturbing about the way the hall lights pushed against his silhouette. Edgar figured, in the back of his head, that he ought to turn on some lights in the room now.

Damon glared at the boy in the door. "Nothing," he muttered, teeth clenched. With a quick look back to the outside world, the darker boy leaned close and whispered, "Watch your _back _for godsake, Edgar."

"You don't believe in God," Edgar whispered back, retrieving his good humor.

Damon stood up and tried to smile in return. "Won't stop me from coming by tonight. Five? Heard Rogers is out today."

"Five," Edgar agreed, looking back at the lighter boy in his doorway. Somehow, he was more interested in his new guest than his side project. Odd. Typically, it was the highlight of his week… well, it _had_ been in any case.

Damon walked out as Jimmy walked in, their shoulders bumping in the middle. The glares sparked like flint on flint, sending momentary fires blazing through the room. The exchange made Edgar uneasy, particularly when Jimmy looked back at his nervous teacher and grinned. Damon tossed a suspicious look over his shoulder as he disappeared into the hall.

"Doesn't like me too much," Jimmy noted, tossing himself into the recently vacated seat.

"You don't exactly go out of your way to be likable," Edgar pointed out, still somewhat uncomfortable.

"True 'nough. Still, 's got no business lookin' at me like that. Acts like I killed his fuckin' cat. Anyways, what's this thing tonight?"

Edgar smiled again, a little more at ease now. "A little venture I've got going on the side. It's kind of a secret… it could probably get me fired, too. Damon's been coming by since September, and he's been really cool about the whole thing."

Jimmy grunted at the mention of his fellow student. "Fired, huh?"

Edgar nodded. "It's kind of… religious. Actually a lot religious. You'll understand if I want to keep it under wraps?"

Jimmy looked like he was going to protest, but his expression crumpled in the middle of the first syllable and his hands balled into fists. "Shit," he muttered, "I feel fuckin' terrible."

The older man leaned over his desk, reaching out for the teen's forehead. "Are you sick?"

He batted the hand away. "I dunno, maybe. I'll be fine. What you wanna talk about today?"

Though he wanted to ask why Jimmy had come by if he felt that bad, Edgar kept the question to himself. Partly because he thought he knew the answer, partly because Jimmy would just lie anyways. "Well," he started, hoping to distract his student, "how about you tell me what you were planning when you tried to run away. I'm curious. Where were you going?"

The kid looked interested now, whatever pain was creeping over him forgotten for the moment. The reasons for his attempted escape, _escape_ being Edgar's term, were just vague enough to raise more questions than answers. But the plans? As it turned out, Jimmy had a pretty solid plan for the where and the how.

"So I figured I'd come here, eventually," Jimmy finished, looking over Edgar's shoulder and out the window. "It's a decent big city, and some of the people I new back home knew people up here. Goth network, y'know. Thought I'd get some shitty job an' rent some shitty apartment… eh, maybe live out of my car. Probably the second one, since I wanna be able to leave if I wanna."

"So…" Edgar rested his head in his hands, "you basically ended up just where you wanted to be, but with a decent mattress instead of a car."

A visible wave of pain swept over the kid's features, and then subsided. "Yeah, funny huh? I don't like school too much, but whatever puts some miles between me and Carmella, I'm cool with it."

They talked for a while longer, performing their usual dance around the real subject—Edgar tugging him towards the problem, Jimmy sidestepping into something else. One of these days, Edgar was going to put all the pieces together, but for now all he had was a hand full of ideas. He admitted readily that he was not doing this for the school anymore—if he ever had been—and these days, he was just indulging his curiosity.

And, ah, perhaps enjoying the company.

At four o'clock, Jimmy halted in the middle of a rant about the local age limits and curled into a kind of ball, bent over at the waist. Edgar stood up quickly and made his way around, dropping to the boy's level. Damnit, the nurse left at two-forty. It was four now.

"Jimmy, you live on campus, right?"

The boy groaned an affirmative, and Edgar wrapped one hand around his wrist—then pressed the other to his forehead. Fever. Damnit. It must have just kicked in fully, or he would have felt some of the heat when Jimmy first mentioned feeling ill.

"Can you stand?" Edgar asked, taking away the now uncomfortably warm hand.

Jimmy nodded.

"What are your symptoms?" the older man murmured, pulling his student to his feet.

"…Headache… really cold… feel fuckin' disgusting…" Jimmy tightened his grip on Edgar's hand, leaning into the offered shoulder. "Shit. All up on you an' I can't even enjoy it."

"Well, your hormones haven't quite given up so I suppose you can't be too badly off."

They struggled for a moment to balance the new center of gravity and then left the room, making a slow way down the corridor. If Jimmy had just gone back to his room when he started feeling bad, this wouldn't be necessary—but then, that was just typical stubbornness, Edgar supposed. And it was better that he cracked in Edgar's classroom than out with some of his delinquent friends. "Friends" being another loose term, from what he'd gathered.

At the front of the school, Edgar spent a minute fumbling for his set of key before the door flew open in front of them. On the other side, Principal Rogers wore a matching mask of surprise.

"Mr. Rogers!" the teacher exclaimed, automatic. "I thought you were out today!"

"Well I came back," his boss replied, shortly. "Why are you latched onto that student, Mr. Vargas?"

Edgar felt his face go almost as hot as Jimmy's. "Er, he's sick, you see. I'm taking him back to his dorm."

Rogers gave him an 'oh really?' sort of look, but Edgar had pushed his student out the door and scrambled after him before any further questions could be asked. Unfortunately, Edgar had a tendency to look like he was guilty even when he was cleaner than an obsessive compulsive's apartment. He'd give some kind of report later, when he wasn't frazzled and Jimmy wasn't giving him the most amused look he'd ever seen on a sick kid.

Immeasurably later, with some time-outs for the ill party in the middle, the two men wound up on Jimmy's threshold, searching for a key.

"Hide it," Jimmy was muttering, "different place every day. Snot nosed little… fuckers, got in one too many times. Stole my… goddamn text books."

"Is that why you're failing?" Edgar responded, plucking the key triumphantly out of the stair-rail.

The kid gave his best attempt at a laugh. "I'd fail either way…" he sucked in a breath, "…just this way, I got an excuse."

The door swung open easily and Edgar took his student by the arm, pulling him into the dorm carefully. Inside was about what you'd expect from a teenage boy, leaving the details up to the more imaginative. Edgar was more of the clean sort himself, so he ended up dragging Jimmy's now near-useless body back into the bedroom the long way, avoiding the worst patches of mess.

"You need me to stay here?" the older man asked, shoving a mess of clothes and detritus off the bedspread.

"Nuh-uh," the kid managed, crawling into his bed. It was weirdly cute. "Come back sometime… not sick… make it up to you…"

Edgar decided _not _to take that as some kind of innuendo—though knowing Jimmy, he'd be half dead and still propositioning people. He pulled the covers up over the kid, flashing back to his own teen years. Not pleasant flashbacks, since at this age Edgar had been well on the way to his current orphaned state. When he was eighteen, he'd been tucking his mother into a hospital bed.

"Too bad I… messed up your ev'nin'…" Jimmy muttered, about as close to apologizing as he'd ever been.

"It's alright, it's—" Edgar cut himself off. No, this was not _his job. _There was no reason he had to help, no obligation; he did it because he wanted to. "It's fine. And hey…" The older man remembered his unexpected meeting with the principal, "…if you hadn't sent us out into the lobby when you did, I wouldn't know Rogers is back in town. Speaking of which, I need to call Damon, let him know we aren't meeting tonight."

Edgar smiled down at the kid, the kid with pale skin turned fever-pink and dark, dark eyes unfocused from pain. He just looked like a child right now. He wasn't a child, not in the usual sense that an eighteen-year-old was, but for now the unwarranted years had melted away.

"Hey, who knows," Edgar whispered, "if it weren't for you, my secret might not be much of a secret come tomorrow."

Outside the bedroom, he looked around at the dorm and at the bizare shape of his life with a sort of amused sigh. He supposed some things just had to be.

* * *

Christmas break was just a day away when Jimmy burst in the door to Edgar's office—by this point, the kid and the door were close personal buddies—bitching about his plans for the holiday. Between the curse words, Edgar was able to pick out something about him not wanting to go home. And also, something about popcorn.

Handing his student a cup of tea, Edgar thought back to all the things he'd been told. He thought about the things he _hadn't_ been told. He thought about how Damon was going with his family to New York, how full and impersonal his church got this time of year, how he was going to have to visit his parents' graves before New Years.

Edgar pulled off a sticky note and scribbled a number on it, pressing it into Jimmy's leather-gloved hands.

"My number," he said, almost wistful. "Call me if you get bored… if anything happens with your family. I spend Christmases at home, so I'll get your call."

Jimmy looked at him. The number slipped into his pocket, and after a moment of silence, he managed a 'thanks' and walked back out the door.

It was the first time he'd ever thanked anybody for anything, to Edgar's knowledge.

* * *

Jimmy called him almost every day, complaining and talking about how he never thought he'd _wish _to be back at school but what do you know? And sometimes, Edgar thought he might have heard something in the kid's tone that was shakier than usual… it might have been the connection.

But he _was _suspicious.

* * *

In late January, Jimmy left his backpack in the office one afternoon. Somebody called him on his brand-new cell phone and he went dashing out of the room, calling something about tomorrow over his shoulder.

So, for about ten minutes, Edgar sat in his office, staring at the backpack. What to do with it? He couldn't just leave it in here over the weekend, but he didn't like the idea of leaving it outside Jimmy's door—if they stole his binders, whoever they were, they'd surely steal his bag. The key, he'd been told, was hidden somewhere new every day, so it wasn't like he could get inside the dorm even if he was okay with that scenario.

Then a thought occurred to him.

He'd always had a problem with fixation—a thought occurred to him and then there was nothing to do but roll with it. So, blinded to any other option, Edgar found himself picking up the backpack and heading out to his car.

Jimmy'd told him where he went after school, where all his delinquent, Goth/punk not-friends hung out in their free hours. It was worth a try, he supposed. It wasn't till he was about halfway to the mall that poor Edgar realized he could have just held onto the bag until the next morning to drop it off—and by then, he figured he might as well go through with this plan.

Edgar parked and slid out of his car, troublesome artifact swung over one shoulder. Now, where did he say it was…?

The cluster of kids—the oldest one probably a sophomore in college—tucked into the alley outside a theater hardly noticed Edgar approach, not surprising since they were pretty much focused on the fight going on further down the alley.

The one standing beside Jimmy happened to glance back, spotted the advancing form and elbowed his companion in the ribs.

"Think he wants you," the stranger said, gesturing with a smoking cigarette.

Jimmy turned around, nearly choking when he saw the older man.

"Who's that?" one of the others asked, this one with more studs than a piece of machinery.

"Uh…"

Edgar looked from Piercings to Cigarette and back to Jimmy. What colorful company… "You left your stuff back at my place," Edgar explained, cocking a brow. "I thought I might as well try to get it back to you."

"The fuck're you?" demanded Cigarette, sounding more curious than anything else.

"None of your goddamn business," Jimmy cut in, evidently finding his voice again. "Uh, thanks Edgar. Can I talk to you for a sec?" The boy pulled him away from the main group, scowling. Behind them, it sounded like somebody was winning the impromptu battle.

"You should _not_ be here," the student muttered, tugging at his fishnets. "These guys find out you're a teacher, it ain't gonna be pretty. They can barely keep from killin' each other, I don't even wanna think about you an' me."

Edgar glanced back at the motley crew. "They aren't the most social people, I take it."

Jimmy snorted. "You're just lucky you're wearin' black today. I mean, I 'preciate you bringin' me my stuff, yeah? But I got a rep an' you got a nice face. Let's see if we can both keep our assets in order."

Somebody called out to Jimmy- "Hey, you're gonna miss out on the good shit if you don't get your ass back here!"

"Chico's my man," Jimmy explained, apparently talking about Cigarette, "'s got an eye out for my interests. Hold on, man," he called back, "just give me a minute!"

"Dude, talk to your fucktoy later! We got a limited supply!"

Edgar looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at Edgar. He'd been here for less than five minutes and already God was dousing him with irony. "Are you going to tell them I'm not gay?"

Jimmy shrugged, a horrible look of amusement lurking in his eye. "Round here? You don't have to be." He leaned in close, almost as tall as Edgar himself. "Sooooo… no. I think I like this version of things better. Wanna give me a kiss before you go?"

Edgar glanced back the little crowd behind them, an idea taking shape. "The good shit. It's drugs, I presume?"

The kid looked thrown. "Uh, maybe? I don't think I oughta be tellin' a teacher that."

That snap-decision making took over again, and the older man noticed his heart beating abnormally fast now. "I'll tell you what. You promise not to have whatever they've got over there… and I'll give you that kiss."

Jimmy's eyes went wide. "No way. You serious?

Edgar looked his student over. Moral codes, lawsuits, and labels all went spinning past him, leaving two things in their place: one, fear for Jimmy's body, knowing the sorts of things that real drugs do to people. And two, the adrenaline buzz rushing through his own veins, the inexplicable high and the wonder of what Jimmy's lips would feel like.

"I'm serious," he replied.

The kid grinned, all teeth. "You got yourself a deal."

* * *

About a month later, Jimmy was digging through stacks of graded tests while his councilor searched for a moonpie underneath the contents of his inbox. He couldn't remember the last time his office had been this messy, though it might have been during his first semester at the Academy. He'd been a little frazzled, the first time around.

"What? Jamie Nox? The hell did _she_ end up with an A?"

Edgar plucked the stack of papers from his companion's grasp. "Since she studied for it. I wish you wouldn't belittle my students like that. You know, they haven't done anything to deserve it."

Jimmy scowled and slipped the missing moonpie out of nowhere. "They just haven't had a chance yet. Not everybody's as nice as you, Mr. Vargas. Think you'da learned that by now."

"Look," the teacher said, grabbing the pastry too, "I know we long ago gave up the pretence of having actual therapy sessions, but I have to break form on this one. Prejudice is nasty business, Jimmy. You say people judge you before they even talk to you—well, guess what you're doing to the rest of the world. It's not good. Hypocrisy is bad enough, but you're not even giving anyone the chance to prove you wrong."

The younger man narrowed his eyes. "Uh-huh. An' while that may be true, you don't seem to've thought about why exactly I'm closing shit out. Can't trust people, Mr. Vargas. A chance at some lousy interpersonal contact just isn't worth the risk of getting' burned. An' I been burned plenty enough for a good long time."

"Then why are you sitting here, Jimmy?" Edgar took his own seat, feeling the old chair give under him.

A sort of wary look crossed over Jimmy's face. "You really gonna ask me that? Shit man, I don't know, you just kinda snuck up on me. Made a good first impression. I. I dunno. Can't explain it, I guess you just sorta struck me as different. Plus, you're fuckin' _hot, _in a librarian-ish way."

A clock ticked and Edgar sighed. Well he couldn't call the kid out on that, considering he himself had no idea why they got along so well. The fact that Jimmy trusted him at all—despite his misanthropic sort of attitude about life in general—could be considered progress of a big kind.

"Heh, speaking of which," Jimmy went on, "some of the guys been asking about you… wanna know who you are, where I picked you up… why they haven't seen you 'round since last month."

Edgar feigned disinterest. "Oh? And what have you been telling them?"

"Told 'em you're my main squeeze," Jimmy grinned, mean-spirited glee pooling around his chair. "Told 'em you're all straight edge an' I been goin' light 'cause you won't sleep with me otherwise."

Edgar raised a finger, and then dropped it. "…Oh _have_ you?"

"An' I'm not even lying," the kid cackled, leaning back. "Way I figure it, you _wouldn't_."

"Except that you left out how I'm your teacher, your councilor, _and_ eight years your senior. Oh, and that we aren't actually dating. Yes, but other than that you're clean as a saint."

"Not tellin' 'em I'm dating a _teacher_. You wanna torch my reputation or what? As for the rest of it, 's none of their business even if they cared. Been exercising my literary skills too—you oughta hear some of the stories I been tellin'."

"I'm sure I can think up a sufficiently foul substitute for myself," Edgar replied, ignoring the tremor that went through his finger when he took a second to consider such a substitute. "You know, if word manages to get around to Rogers, I'll be fired faster than you can say 'code of conduct'."

"You don't seem particularly worried," Jimmy retorted, resting his elbows on the desktop and his head in his hands.

"Well. I don't think you're stupid enough to say anything like that to the kids here, and I'm not worried about your little clique mingling with them either. Other than that, there's the matter of nobody particularly liking you… a situation you do little to amend, by the way."

"So what you're sayin'," Jimmy replied, leaning closer, "is nobody'd know if you _did_ try to pull somethin' on me. You could… get away with it."

Edgar pulled back. "Well, yes I suppose. If I were inclined to take advantage of my students, which I'm not."

Jimmy leaned even closer, pressing against the top of the desk. "You remember when I said I was a bitch for authority?" he asked, a sultry tone creeping through his voice. "I wasn't lying."

"Er." Heart beating quickly now, Edgar had a moment—just a moment, mind you—where he could really imagine throwing his student down on the floor and taking advantage of his age and position in a way he'd never dreamed of doing before. And then he looked back at Jimmy.

"You were _too _lying," he murmured, sitting forward so that they were now only inches apart. "Are you testing me, Jimmy? Do you think I need testing?"

A half-smile ghosted across the boy's lips. "I guess not," he said. He sat back now, draping his arms across his legs. "You wanna know why I trust you? You wanna know why I like you?"

Edgar tilted his head.

"It's 'cause you're a good guy. I never ran across one of those before, I'll tell you truly. But mostly, it's 'cause you really do care about me, an' I can tell."

Something glittered in his eyes, something a lot deeper than people gave him credit for. Jimmy was no idiot, and neither was he shallow. Things ran deep in him, sliding into secret places where the meaning lost the words that went with them. The jumbled mess of shadows and dreams wove through his brain, waiting on a kind of precipice, waiting to be tugged one way or the other.

"Do you remember when you first saw me?" Edgar asked, finally, eyes fixed on empty space. "You were still trying to beat the living hell out of Joe Manuel, and you had two teachers trying to drag you away. You know what I thought, when I first got a good look?"

Jimmy quirked a brow.

"I thought nothing. Literally, I couldn't think. It's kind of like when you get high for the first time, and you see all the colors and the shapes like you were living blind up until then—really see them, how they connect and how they're really all part of the same thing. Well, no, maybe that was just me? The point is… the point is… I don't have a point. Some things just are what they are."

"So we're agreed, then," Jimmy said, peering out from under black-rimmed eyelids. "I trust you, you trust me, even though we got no business doin' it. You're a shit psychiatrist by the way."

Edgar grinned, suddenly, and spread his arms out wide. "But Jimmy," he replied, "I'm exactly what you need!"

The kid started to respond and then stopped, mouth open mid-syllable. "…You sneaky fucker," he managed, an amazed smile tugging his mouth. "An' all this time I thought it was me givin' _you_ the go around."

It was funny how everything was _different_ with Jimmy.

"You know what?" the student went on, shaking his head. "I graduate end of May. Let's see you slip out from under me _then_."

Edgar sighed and closed his eyes. "I think… I think I'll just have to let you have that one, this time."

Right now, he didn't feel like arguing.

* * *

Edgar first met Jimmy when he was twenty-seven and the kid was eighteen. It was anyone's guess how they ended up side by side, anyone's guess how fate had managed to line them up so perfectly—but some things are just bound to happen, in the end. Some things will catch up with you, no matter which way you turn.

Emptiness and loneliness are close, one fading into the other seamlessly. Sometimes the empty space is easy to fill—usually, it's not. Sometimes the missing piece has to be dug out of dark corners and mountains of chaos—sometimes it falls into your lap.

That's life.

But if you have the pieces, it's only a matter of time before you put them together. Eventually, you solve the problem.

And, if nothing else, Edgar _was_ a natural.

FIN


	18. Gotta be Tough, but That's not Enough

Eternity in a Pickle Jar

_"We don't love because, we love despite"_

* * *

_…And so far she hasn't run,  
though I swear she's had her moments,  
She still believes in miracles  
while others cry in vain._

That night, on Jimmy's couch, Edgar dreamed for the first time since passing on. In his dream, Bondye stood before him, expectant, his face cast in shadow by the brim of a cowboy hat.

"Well, now," the phantom said, "you do know what you're doing, fè ou pa?"

Edgar nodded. Something around them shifted, and they were sitting in the kitchen of Edgar's childhood home, the one from his earliest memories—his Hispanic mother's home, in the Florida countryside. He'd all but forgotten what it looked like until now.

"What _is_ a home?" Bondye mused, eyeing the family portrait hanging behind Edgar.

"A place where you're happy," the lighter man replied. His gaze strayed to the forest outside the window, a square of green on green floating above the sink. He'd forgotten how _green_ it was here.

"You think? And where are you happy, Msye Vargas?"

"Hell," Edgar answered promptly. "Hell's the best place I've been since my mother died."

A glitter sparked in the Haitian's eye. "Home isn't a house, Edgar. They's two different things."

In the ineffable way of dreams, Bondye shook his head and faded away, leaving his seat empty. Nonplussed, the dreaming man turned back towards the living room. He knew what he'd find there, if he bothered to look: big boxy TV, a shelf of books with titles like _The Dragon and the Unicorn_ and _The Invisible Man_. His father's books. And mixed in with them, his mother's romance novels and her dance journals.

"I know that," Edgar murmured to the air.

"Oh do you?"

Edgar looked back to the table, where Señor Diablo now filled the seat across from him. The being raised one skeletal brow.

"I thought I was done with you," the dead man scowled, resting his head in his hand. "I already proved you wrong once. You want to try again?"

"Hello, Vargas. Just as two-faced as ever, I see."

Edgar looked away and realized that the house had transformed around him as well, leaving them at the little wooden dinner table of a spacious apartment. This had been his home from fifth grade into college, and unlike the last, it was still fresh in his mind. Over the balcony, familiar Californian suburbs were just visible.

"You like my realm," Satan noted, "better than this memory. Curious creature."

Edgar shrugged. The apartment was empty, and even in his own mind it still carried the faint scent of death and mourning. That, no amount of soap could scrub away.

"You could have it, you know," Señor Diablo went on. "My realm, that is. I do rather like you, clueless being though you are. There are places where my administration is… shall we say, thin. You're a hard worker, pitifully fair too. I could use that."

"Is that supposed to sound like a Faustian deal or a business proposition?"

The Adversary shrugged. "It matters not to me. Regardless of the means, I should like to acquire your talent for some measure of eternity. I would send you to all the cities, Paris and Moscow, Brighton, those little countries like Singapore… You could have respect, interesting work, a myriad of subjects to study..."

"Why a dream?" Edgar cut in, gaze narrowing. "Why not find me while I'm awake?"

"Your friend doesn't like me," Lucifer replied, as if that explained it all. "Now, about that job offer… you can't tell me you aren't interested."

Edgar spied a book on the coffee table, a psychology textbook with the corner of his mother's _Pride and Prejudice _peeking out from under it. His thoughts, though, flashed back to Jimmy more than anything else. The boy's form, tense with a sort of grudging acceptance, flickered before he pushed it away. Now was not the time to get distracted, not with one of the two most powerful beings in Creation waiting for a coherent answer.

"I _like_ the city I'm in. I'm happy there."

"I offer you so much more, though," the Devil pushed on, leaning forward. "Surely, you cannot be so enamored with a mere _corner_ of the universe. You're a creature of intellect, curiosity. You would turn down all of creation for the underbelly of a city you hated in life?"

If only he could explain… if only he understood it himself. "I love this Hell. Something about it… something about it is just so perfect it almost _hurts_. As tempting as I know you could make the offer, and it's tempting enough as it is, I'm not even sure God himself could make me leave here. It's the only place I've ever felt so… content. Surely you understand, Señor."

"Yes," the devil replied, slowly, "but do you?"

And then the seat across from him was empty, and the table iron wrought, and the apartment was smaller—much smaller, with a window looking out into a street. There was nothing wrong with it, the walls and floors were clean and pleasant, but something in the air was smothering despite the tidiness. Edgar turned towards the door, determined not to linger in his old rooms any longer than he had to- and stopped dead in his tracks.

"…Damon?"

A dark-skinned teenager, maybe seventeen, regarded him from the doorway. Every detail was just as Edgar remembered, from the doc martens to the casual slouch.

"Miss me?" the boy asked, eyes almost hidden by unnatural shadow.

"…Yes," the older man murmured. His vision swam.

What… yes, this was a dream, but it had been so long since he saw the boy, so very _long_. Why now? Why tonight? Thousands of questions rushed through his head like a flood submerging a city, so many and so varied that it was all he could do not to collapse under their pressure. He'd been so certain, so _certain_ that they'd never meet again. He'd been so certain he'd never hear that voice again. Why now, why here, why, why, _why did you do it_…

And then Damon was inches away from him, dark fingers on his teacher's cheek. "I'm back, Edgar. They let me come back for you. They want you out of Hell, and they sent me here to trade. Up There isn't happy with the way you've been getting around... so, if you come back, you get me. Everything can be perfect now. This is how it should have been," he whispered, voice slipping into ever lower registers, "me and you, this apartment… "

_How_ _it should have been_…

God, yes, it should have been. Hadn't he thought the same thing, over and over, long nights in the dead of winter? No death, no pain, it should have been better, nothing should end that way… but he was here now, wasn't he? He finally got that thing he'd prayed for, long nights in the dead of winter, and they could do it over, and he was smiling like—

Something made Edgar stop there. His skin went cold, as if all the life had suddenly drained out of him. This was… wrong. This was wrong. Damon never smiled like that, and, and, Damon was _gone_.

"You're not real," the dreaming man said, realizing it only as the worlds left his mouth. "I don't know what you are, but you aren't real."

"Come now, of course I am. Don't you want me back?" Damon purred, shadowed eyes falling even deeper into blackness. "We can be perfect now, exactly like you wanted. Just like you used to pray for. No moral dilemmas, no messy questions, none of the fuss that goes with life. You're set for _Heaven_, Edgar… you can have anything you want. Even me. You don't know what happiness _is_. Let me show you."

A part of Edgar's mind screamed _yes, yes oh god yes,_ burning for the promise—yes, he deserved this. Yes, he could have it. No one would hurt, no one would care, and god he just needed to feel like love was simple and he _needed_ _to be loved_.

And then his ego got a hold of his screaming id.

"I don't know who you are," Edgar ground out, pushing the body away from his, "or even _what_ you are, but if you don't leave me right now… I'm going to… do… _something_. And you won't like it!"

"Why not?" the dream creature asked, head tilted. "I am perfect, Edgar—_that_ is what I am. I am whatever you want me to be. Or, perhaps, you have forgotten Damon already? Perhaps this is the wrong form—I had assumed that you wanted something simple, something pure… But perhaps you would prefer something more _modern_?"

And then Damon's dark skin faded into white, a smattering of dark freckles spread across his nose—black spiky hair, pierced ears. Jimmy looked at him, now, the same strange shadows around his eyes.

"I can be him, if you like. I haven't murdered or raped, or even stolen. I know that it keeps you awake, I know that you think about it when you're alone and Hell is empty and Heaven is silent. You wonder, 'how can I love someone who's done so much wrong? How can I want the best for someone who hurt so many people?' Isn't it horrible?" This Jimmy who was not Jimmy tapped a finger to his lips. "You want him, but he's so _dirty- _and if you touch him, your hands will dirty too. For all that you cry out desperately in your sleep, aching for arms to hold you and a voice to say it loves you, you can't let him touch you. He's too corrupted."

The vision spread its arms wide, tilting its head again.

"I can be him, perfected. I am the things you love without the things you hate. Think about it, Edgar. You want to be loved. I can love you. You want this body—" the Jimmy imposter motioned smoothly towards his hips, "—I can give you this body. What can he give you that I cannot? You went so long without love, without a kiss… or a touch… don't you think you deserve it now?"

The feel of black-painted nails on his skin cracked Edgar's resolve. It was so tempting… so very tempting…

"Is it so wrong to want to be loved?"

Spiderweb fissures spread through the universe. _So tempting..._

"Love me," Jimmy said, wrapping his other arm around Edgar's waist. "It can be easy. Why should you settle for the damned when you can have perfection? Anything he offers you, I can give you tenfold. With him, you're nothing—some cure for boredom, some interesting new toy to fuck. I… can love you. He doesn't even know what the word means."

Eyes closed now, Edgar leaned into the fingers on his cheek. True, painfully true… hadn't he wondered the same thing? Hadn't he? How could you know what your friend thinks in the dark privacy of his own mind, and there was so little that was certain in the realm of that twisted landscape. Maybe Edgar was a fool, for thinking that he mattered—maybe he was deluding himself, trying to see good in someone who was so corrupted. Maybe he was just pitiful, for falling so hopelessly in love with the one person who had looked twice in his direction. Maybe… this was what he deserved for daring to think someone real might care about him.

Damon hadn't loved him—now, in the safety of his dreams, he could admit how much that stung. They had been friends, but the kid left him behind with barely a sentence of apology in a suicide letter, and _God_, that had hurt so badly, and he had wanted to believe that this time would be different, but Jimmy… Jimmy probably though he was a sucker. The boy just wanted to fuck him, maybe for the challenge, maybe because it would be funny. This… this Dream was right: Jimmy didn't even know the meaning of love.

But he remembered…

Edgar remembered the lips on his lips, hours ago, and how they had formed words that weren't words at all.

And he remembered every minute they'd spent together, and the way Jimmy talked to him, and the way he smiled, and the secrets that he'd never shared with anyone else. Images spun around him, fading in and out of the darkening air, memories of inexplicable moments bursting into life with all the bright strangeness of firing neurons. And he remembered that sometimes words aren't enough.

"You're wrong," he gasped, turning his face as far away from the Dream as possible. "He cares about me, I know it. We're _friends_, damnit, which is apparently something you can't understand!"

Dream Jimmy grabbed Edgar's chin and forced it back. "I'm not convinced," it breathed. "He'll never tell you he loves you. You will never, in all the potential eternity ahead of you, hear those words from him. Don't settle, Edgar. You owe him nothing. He's the sinner, not you—I offer you all that you deserve. What can he give you that I cannot?"

"Everything," Edgar hissed back, grabbed the phantom's hands and ripped them away.

The dream gave him a serpentine glare, recoiling. "But you admit he's imperfect. _Why_ _choose_ _him_?"

"I—"

The question stopped him short. In his heart of hearts, he had always wanted that fabled flawlessness, since he was young and he dreamed of a faceless woman and faceless children and a white picket fence in the suburbs. That was what he wanted. That was what he _always_ wanted. To love and be loved by something that was always beautiful, never went wrong. When the alternative was this dysfunctional mess of a bloody-handed _child_, how could he turn it down?

And then the answer came to him.

"You know what your _tenfold perfection_ doesn't have?" he asked, fists clenching. "It doesn't have the reasons I fell in love with Jimmy in the first place! It doesn't have his inappropriate jokes or his skewed sense of morals or his ridiculous drinking habits! I love _him_. I don't want some wind-up toy to tell me they love me every day, who does whatever I ask no matter what they think—I'm in love with a person! Not a toy! And Jimmy's past is part of who he is, and yes, it scares me sometimes, but I love him anyway! Next time you go tempting somebody, here's a tip: real love is _despite_, not _because_!"

"And suppose," the phantom hissed, "in spite of that touching sentiment, he never loves you in return?"

"You know something? I don't care. If I have to be miserable to be happy, I don't even care if I end up being some kind of _Cyrano De Bergerac_, because all I want is to spend as long as I can with the one person who can make me glad to be dead. And you, you soulless, lying thing, can't give me _anything _that I want, let alone what I need!"

Edgar stepped back, and the world went dark, leaving just the man and the Dream in a universe of darkness. No stars filled the void, no wind shifted it—there was only Edgar, and this thing that claimed to be perfect.

"So," Dream Jimmy said, eyes narrow in their shadows, "you would trade everything you have ever dreamed of… for one murderer and a handful of pathetic hope?"

"For a soul," Edgar replied, "which I suspect you lack."

There was silence in the void, for a long time. Beyond the edges of their empty universe, Edgar could feel the tug of someone calling for him.

"He still thinks that you'll change your mind," the phantom murmured, at last. "But I'm now less certain that he's right. Answer me this… how _do_ you remain loyal to him, knowing all that he's done?"

The dreaming man shrugged. "The last circle of Hell is reserved for traitors, you know."

"…Yes," Dream Jimmy sighed, his voice as dark as the abyss. "I do know."

And in the seconds before he awoke, Edgar suspected that he recognized that voice.

* * *

_It's all about faith and a deeper devotion,  
It's all about soul, knowing that love is a stronger emotion. _

* * *

Unfortunately, Edgar did wake up with a hangover. It did a wonderful job of suppressing whatever disturbing dream he'd had the night before—he must have had one, because he remembered drinking in the middle of the night, and remembered something… something about pain, deep wrenching pain, and a lone figure…

Then the headache crushed his memories.

In the kitchen he snagged a cup of water, then a second, and pretty much crawled back to the couch. Why did they have to have hangovers in the afterlife? Maybe it was only fair trade for the ability to get drunk, but right now he wasn't feeling too reasonable. A few curses in the direction of Hell and its proprietors left the dead man just drained enough to sleep again.

The next time he woke up, pain was a fuzzy and faded thing. Edgar stretched, and his hand came into sudden, sharp contact with a foreign object.

Jimmy.

_That_ was what he'd forgotten. He elbowed the sleeping man back into the waking world and returned to the kitchenette for another glass of water, figuring that even if Jimmy slept through the worst of the morning, dehydration was still a problem at large.

Back in the living room, or what passed for it, Jimmy cracked open one eye and made a pathetic noise that Edgar found highly amusing. The older man held out his cup, brow raised.

"Looks like you need this," he said, making sure the contents didn't spill all over the tasteless carpeting when Jimmy grabbed for it.

While the younger man tried to get down as much liquid as possible, Edgar sat beside him trying to remember that dream. Pain, aching pain that went beyond the contraints of a body figured prominently, and there was something about fear… and something that felt solid where it had once been uncertain. He snuck a glance over at his companion, looking like an impressionist painting without glasses to bring him into focus, and realized that—for the first time—there was no question of whether he loved the boy. Always before there was some kind of hedging, some kind of hesitation stemming from things he refused to examine. Now, though…

"I love you," he said, almost testing the words on his tongue.

Jimmy choked a little, eyes going wide. "Whoa—" he coughed "—that was random."

Edgar shrugged, smiling now. "It's just that I've never said it before. I thought it was about time, seeing as it's not exactly a secret."

Jimmy just looked at him. "Y'know," he muttered, "you're one weird guy. I know we been over that, but fuckin' _Christ_, you're a weird guy."

"Indeed. Do you have a hangover?"

"Uh… not too much."

"Good." The older man stood and headed for the counter of the kitchenette, where he seemed to remember putting his glasses. "Put on your nice fishnets, Jimmy. I want to go out."

In the end, Edgar managed to get his companion presentable and walking in the right direction—the one that would take them to a nice restaurant, for once. Something in the universe was lighter, and he felt like celebrating. The sky was crisp white and the wailing of the damned had a bit of tune to it, today.

"I'll cover this one," Edgar said, closing the apartment door behind them. "Little blue card, remember?"

Jimmy scowled. "Then why d'you make me pay for things so often? I don't have a job."

"It reassures me that my best friend isn't a complete moocher."

"Yeah well, your mama."

"Is dead, yes," Edgar agreed, "speaking of which, I haven't seen her around heaven. They must really have a high turnover rate or something. You heard anything about it?"

Jimmy still looked a little sheepish about the whole dead mother thing. "Uh, y'know, I did hear something from Fish…"

As Edgar had been trying to figure out the afterlife's system since he arrived at the help-desk, months and months ago, every little bit of recon was appreciated. Obviously, this wasn't the only spot for a dead person to end up, and equally obvious was that nobody stayed here forever—but as to why there _was_ a turnover, and where the change took people? That was a bit more opaque.

Apparently, Jimmy and Fish had a mutual acquaintance, the hanger-on type who desperately wants a place to belong. Petty crimes made up his rap sheet, mostly. The way that Jimmy told the story, the boy—Juan was his name—was murdered about a month before Jimmy himself showed up, and none of the deceased from the local gang wanted anything to do with him.

"See, Juan's good for holdin' the bags, drivin' the car—but there's no police down here, an' nobody really needed him anymore. Obnoxious sorta clingy kid."

Fish had observed that the boy was frequenting a particular bar, the kind that played redundant suicide music every night and hosted Die Again events whenever they could gather a big enough and stupid enough crowd.

"_'We will make you king' said the people_," Edgar quoted, "_and Death replied, 'I am king already_.' It's a poem about what happens when death disappears. Stephen Dobyns."

In any case, Fish was a bit of a hanger-on as well—and there's nothing that the fringe like better than to pretend superiority. So a few days ago (which was longer than it sounds, as they'd had a particularly long light-period about two cycles before) Fish went and found his old associate sitting on an abandoned stoop, staring at the sky.

"Fish says, y'know, '_how's Hell_?', and Juan just gives him this crazy look."

_Empty, _he says. _Hell is empty, and I am a fool._

Understandably confused, and a little unnerved, Fish goes about making fun of his speech patterns.

_This is how I was raised to speak,_ Juan replies. _I'm tired of chasing after blind men. Go away. _

Fish asks him, _hey, what's got into you? You think you're smarter than me?_

Juan gives him that same look, as if he's looking _through_ the boy, and he says, _of course I am. I always have been, and I'm sorry that I ever tried to pretend otherwise. A life spent chasing blind men is a life wasted in the dark._

Fish wants to laugh, if only to calm his nerves, but that eerie glare is sapping him of all the usual bravado. _Why don't you come back with me_, he tries, _the guys miss you. I'll buy you a drink, okay?_

_No, _Juan says. _I've learned my lesson. I'm done. The man who killed me was right, I was a fool._

And then he's gone.

Edgar raised a brow. "You mean he left?"

"No man, he was _gone._ Like he was never there."

Edgar considered that. You'd think that with the Devil being the drama queen he is, there might be a bit more in the way of fireworks. A poof of smoke. Something. Unless it wasn't the Devil's doing at all…

"Thank you Jimmy," Edgar grinned, "that fits perfectly into my hypothesis."

The teen shrugged as they rounded a corner. "Figured you'd be interested."

A tableau across the street caught his eye, resplendent with reds and oranges worked into fearsome figures that were more motion than shape. Ah, so Hell had a new resident artist, did it? The mural captured something primal in it, perhaps the spirit of the artist's crimes.

"It's rather thoughtful of you to keep an ear out for me," Edgar noted, shooting a glance sideways. "Unusually thoughtful."

Jimmy looked down at his nails, examining the chipping paint. "Just happens to come up, y'know? Nothin' special. Not much else to talk about 'round here, you might've noticed."

"Of course." The older man hid a smile.

"What d'you think happens after we get turned over?" Jimmy mused, jamming hands in pockets.

"Honestly? You know what I think, and I can only guess. A lot of different religions believe in reincarnation—you've got Inuit and Buddhist and even early Christians. I suppose that's a pretty strong indicator, but it's only my theory."

"Think we get to stick together?"

Edgar looked over at his friend and tried to imagine what the dead man was thinking. "I hope so. I mean, if you aren't there, who's going to make fun of my clothes and call me a faggot? Oh, and I don't know what I'd do without you pretending you don't give a damn about me all the time."

Jimmy screwed up his face. "You bein' sarcastic?"

"No. Weirdly enough, I'd miss all that. How about you, do you feel like sticking with me?"

Across the street, a little round demon scurried into a thrift store. Two cheerleaders gave each other dirty looks. A suspiciously familiar Goth peered out from behind a pillar. An old man threw himself through a window. Edgar smiled—ah, the learning process at its most ineffable.

"S'not like I got anythin' better to do," Jimmy shrugged, "so yeah, I'll stick with you. I guess."

"How generous of you. Speaking of which, I'm missing a pair of pants. You know anything about that?"

Jimmy cocked a brow. "You think I jacked your pants?"

Edgar returned the expression. "Do I even need to point out the wrongness of that sentence?"

"Wrong? Or _right_?"

"No, it's pretty wrong. Now, seriously…"

"Fuck, man," Jimmy groaned, "I didn't steal your clothes. Though, y'know, bet I could fit 'em if I tried… B'sides, who'd want your faggy-ass pants? I ask you that."

"I don't know, you? Maybe you have some sort of fetish for my clothes, I'm not the degenerate in this equation."

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd like to imagine me doin' obscene things with your stuff. Newsflash! Doesn't make it true."

Just for the fun of it, Edgar tried to imagine such a scene. The results were rather colorful and also heinously embarrassing. He took a quick look over his shoulder, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary—he'd always been just a little curious about people reading his mind, but being surrounded by supernatural beings all hours of the day had turned it to a raging paranoia. Eventually, he was certain somebody would catch him in a compromising mental situation. Especially if he kept hanging out with Jimmy.

"Yeeesss… let's not venture any further down that road, okay?"

"Look, nobody's readin' your mind, Edgar. That's what we in the intellectual community like to call _egotism_."

"Oh hah hah hah." Edgar looked really quickly over his shoulder again. "I should never have told you about that. Five points for using a four syllable word, though."

By the time they reached their destination, Edgar was pretty sure that his friend was actually not a clothes stealing master criminal, though that left him fresh out of ideas. The strange goings-on joined the company of such others in the folder labeled "Heck if I Know", located in the back of Edgar's brain.

"Okay," the older man began, gesturing at a glass door a few steps ahead of them, "this is a pretty nice restaurant, all things considered. So here are the ground rules: no hitting on the staff, no starting fights, no stealing, and no messing with the other customers."

Jimmy looked incredulous. "What the fuck am I supposed to _do_ then?"

"Act civilized, like the rest of society." Edgar pushed the door open and slid inside, careful not to knock into one of the oriental vases perched precariously around the entrance. Ah, Hell. Something rattled behind him, and he turned just in time to grab one of the ceramic decorations as it toppled towards the floor. He shot Jimmy a dirty look.

"What? They got a mountain of breakables around the freakin' door like they _want_ me to break it."

"That's—" Edgar peered down at the vase in his hands. "…You know, maybe they _do_."

A small Asian woman trotted up to them, expression glazed and smiling—which would be creepy if Edgar didn't know for a fact that everyone in the food service industry ended up like that.

"Tôi có thể giúp bạn?" asked the woman, expression unchanging.

"Er… English, please?" He'd been hoping to get the other hostess, since it was a well known fact that this one more or less refused to speak anything besides Vietnamese.

"Don't think you're gonna get anywhere like that, Edgar."

She turned her attention to Jimmy, a spark of something now behind the glazed expression. "ông là một kẻ ngốc," she said, voice a little less monotone. Then, shockingly, she leaned towards the boy and cocked a brow. "Nhưng là một kẻ ngốc khá, hmm?"

Jimmy looked back and forth between the hostess and his friend, trying to figure out what just happened. "Uh, sure. Yeah."

The woman actually smiled. "Remember you," she said, haltingly. "Một thời gian dài trước—long time ago… you need table? I get table."

She strode off through a jigsaw mess of crowded tables and partitions, moving so quickly the two of them had to jog after her. The trail led to a booth in the back, in an area with fewer patrons and better lighting, and there the hostess stopped. The men looked at each other and, hesitating, took a seat.

"Server be right with you," she informed them, and then with a quick glance around, "this is good seat. đừng—ah, no trouble, okay?"

As she dashed off, Edgar turned his full attention towards Jimmy. "Explain that, would you?"

The teen was staring hard after her withdrawing form. "Think I met her back when I first got here. To the real city, I mean. She was… a stripper? I don't know too many Asian chicks, so, yeah, gotta be the same one."

Edgar said nothing.

"It was back before I saw Nny. Kind of a long story, y'know? Me an' the guys, we went down town to get in on the chicks an' the booze, an' we sorta… ended up in her club. Don't give me that look, you know you aren't surprised. Problem," he held up a finger, "was that the local clientele wasn't exactly our usual crowd. An' you know the jock set, not even a pair of bouncing tits is gonna distract 'em once they smell blood. Younger guys, they start a fight."

"You got into a fight in a _strip club_. I have really ceased to be surprised."

"Yeah well, I don't much go in for the unwinnable odds thing, an' there were a lot more of them than us. So I kinda slip into the back room, sneaky-like. Only, one of the jocksters spots me an' comes sneaking after. Guy was massive. Fuckin' _massive_. He takes a swing at me, an' that chick-" he pointed in the hostess' direction, "-pulls me through a curtain an' out of the way. Probably saved me a couple teeth. I wait out the brawl with her, in the dressin' room, y'know. She doesn't speak a word of English but she hangs with me till it goes quiet outside."

Edgar tilted his head, fascinated. "Did she want something from you?"

"Nah. Though I did her a solid later that night, so I figure we're even," the thief said, scratching the tabletop with one black nail. "Strippers don't get the best treatment, yeah? Some jackass tried to pull her off into the alley an' I sorta…" he made a swinging motion, "…caught him from behind."

Edgar held up a finger. "So, wait. What you're saying is that you met a woman who helped you for absolutely _no_ good reason. Presumably out of the goodness of her heart."

"…I _guess_ so."

"And you may have, knowing the darker side of such institutions, saved her life. Certainly you kept her from being raped." Despite everything, that word still felt uncomfortable on his tongue.

The boy sat back. "Hey now, I know what you're trying to do here, I've seen this episode. You want me to admit I'm not really as bad as I think I am, an' then we can be all happy an' perfect an' go out for ice-cream an' shit."

What show was that? He'd never seen that show. "No, I'm afraid you really _are_ as bad as you think you are. At least, you have been in the past. I was thinking more along the lines of the woman—did you catch her name? I didn't see a nametag."

"Ph—Phuong? Somethin' like that."

"Alright. Well, you always say that all women are, ah, evil two-faced bitches, am I right?"

"Pretty much."

"And in the past you justified a lot of horrible stuff with that."

"Your point?"

Edgar leaned over the table. "My _point_ is, that woman there is a prime example of how wrong you are. She saved your ass for nothing. You were _there_, for God's sake! Do you even think about what you're telling me?"

"She was a onetime thing! I never seen another half-decent chick before or since, it's like a… it's like a two headed gorilla. It's a freak of nature an' it doesn't prove no point. Period."

"Remind me to give you a lesson about _conformation bias_ one of these days. Jimmy, it _happened_! Do you have any idea what the odds of any one event occurring are? If it happened once, then it's almost certain to happen again, and _again_. Just trust me! Do you trust me?"

The younger man looked hard at him. "You got a tendency to see good where there's no good to see."

_That kind of hurt._

"Or how about this?" the older man said, expression stone cold, "_You_ have a tendency to assume the worst of people who are actually okay. And how about, I'm not actually the idiot you seem to think I am. Will you just _try_ to trust me on this?"

There was silence for a minute, and Jimmy looked uncomfortable. "…'S not that I think you're an idiot, it's just, I… oh, fuck."

Another Asian, this one male, stomped up and slammed two glasses of water onto the table with typical service sector contempt. As he stalked away, Jimmy's broken explanation hung between them.

Finally, the kid shook his head, spiky hair flashing across his forehead. "Okay, okay. I got problems, I know. I'm screwed up, I know. It's crazy in here, sometimes. " He tapped his temple, grimacing.

"Just… trust me. The bad stuff you've seen, that's real. But the good stuff? That's real too. Phuong, or whatever her name is, she helped you when you needed help, and she can barely speak your language. That's genuine good in the world, from a woman on top of that. Just promise me, okay, promise that you'll keep it in mind? For me?"

The teen leaned forward, propping his chin on his fist. "Always know what to say, don't you?"

"Maybe. _You_ always know what I'm trying to say, don't you?"

"And _I_ hate couples," their waiter interrupted, apparently materializing out of thin air. "So can I just take your order already?"

Edgar looked up at the employee, noting his unexpectedly thuggish appearance. Well, maybe if he'd give people a little notice before he came popping up to their tables, he wouldn't get caught in the middle of complicated emotional situations. Honestly, wasn't that the first thing they taught you in trade school?

"Oh, we're really not a couple—"

"Look, I really don't have all day to deal with a pair of chatty fags, so just straighten your panties out and tell me what you want, and I'll see what I can get you. Make it fast."

Edgar kind of gaped at him.

"…Yeah, uh," Jimmy cut in, "give us somethin' with chicken and teriyaki. An' yank that stick out your ass before you come back, I got the real thing here if you're that desperate."

The waiter bit out a toxic sounding "fucktard" and went stalking back into the kitchen, leaving one pleased Jimmy and a slightly stunned Edgar behind him.

"Well, I think the service's pretty good, how 'bout you?"

Edgar blinked at him. "I was not expecting that. Usually you get the sullen, quiet type… I don't think I've ever been outright insulted by the server before."

"Really?" Jimmy shot a curious look at the Asian man hovering near a far away table. "Happens to me all the time."

_That's because you piss people off just by breathing_. His companion glanced down at the boy's black nails and then up at his eyeliner, then raised an amused brow. "Yes, well, maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised—after all, your outfit screams 'faggot' even louder than mine does. I suppose it's only natural that somebody picked up on the call."

Jimmy started laughing, reached across the table and smacked Edgar's shoulder. "Damn, I'm such a bad influence. Next thing you know, we'll be out robbing liquor stores together like Bonnie an' fuckin' Clyde."

"I severely doubt that," Edgar retorted, rubbing his arm. "If anything, I'm rubbing off on _you_."

A lewd grin slid onto the younger man's face. "Yeah, I _wish_ you were rubbin' off on me."

And so it went. It interested Edgar to think that when they first met, Jimmy had been so certain that he was trying to wheedle a lay out of their meeting. And here they were, however long later, with Jimmy trying to do the exact thing he'd once accused the older man of. Why the reversal? Where did the boy change his mind?

"—And then," Jimmy was saying, "some guy in a suit comes out of a stall an' offers me twenty bucks if he can suck _my_ dick."

"I don't believe you. You're just trying to freak me out."

The younger man tapped the table. "No, no. True story, swear to Satan. You get all types of weirdos at a Nine-Inch-Heels concert. This one time, Chuey—"

The waiter stalked up at that moment and threw something to the point of their order onto the table, cutting Jimmy off. He stood there for a minute, radiating contempt, and then he threw a toothpick onto the table too.

"There's a fucking stick for you," he announced, "and it's bigger than yours anyway."

As the waiter stalked off, Jimmy scowled and pocketed the toothpick. "Bigger than _his_, fuckin' gook."

Edgar leaned forward and knocked his friend upside the head. "No racism at my table, thank you."

"It's not racism, they really are tiny!"

"The only way you could know that definitively is if you'd sampled at least fifty percent of the Asian population personally, and I really _really_ do not need to know if that's the case."

"Your jealousy is showing, Edgar darling."

"Okay, seriously, stop doing that. It really creeps me out."

And so it goes.

It was Edgar's personal opinion that the best thing about Jimmy, his favorite thing, was the kid's ability to just _talk_. He could talk to you or at you, or with you, and he could not only keep up, he could leave you in the verbal dust. Edgar had spent a long time in a sort of solitude, some of it self-imposed and some of it imposed by a world that seemed to barely exist in the same universe as him- he was used to listening, to saying little, to a lifetime of clever comments confined to the safety of his own head. He loved that Jimmy could snap back to whatever Edgar felt like saying, things that he would have kept to himself around anyone else.

And he loved that Jimmy knew how to be quiet sometimes, when Edgar was deep inside his own head. That he could just spout off some random thought, and Jimmy could roll with it. And vice versa. It was nice to have somebody who understood you most of the time, and even better to have someone who was willing to try when they didn't.

And who would have expected that someone to be Jimmy?

Sometime after silence had settled over the table, a noise from the younger man's direction drew Edgar out of his thoughts. He looked at Jimmy, and the boy looked back.

"I don't really know what it means to you," he said, gaze unflinching, "but… I do trust you, y'know."

And Edgar smiled and raised his glass.

That was good enough for him.

* * *

_She turns to me sometimes,  
and she asks me what I'm dreamin',  
and I realize I must have gone  
a million miles away—_

_And I ask her how she knew  
to reach out for me at that moment,  
And she smiles because it's understood,  
there are no words to say._

"All About Soul"  
-Billy Joel

TBC


	19. Hell Breaks Loose

Eternity in a Pickle Jar

Author's note: I just want to warn you that A LOT OF SHIT goes down in this chapter, and if you're here for the witty banter and not the slash, then you will not want to read the last portion of this post. You'll know it when you see it. I'm a little nervous, but on the whole, I think I like this chapter.

* This you can find explained in a oneshot, since there's really no room for an expansion here. http:/www. fanfiction .net/s/6231882/1/Unclouded

* * *

_This would be the part of the song that they drop the meter on  
and  
Hell  
Breaks  
Loose._

-Eminem

It doesn't rain in Hell. First of all, there are no clouds to rain with, and second of all, it's too pervasively humid for a raindrop to form. Not even one. Sometimes when the sky goes dark, fog rises up off the asphalt in billows of choking steam and pours through the streets. It's rare, but you can always tell the morning after—the air is almost too thick to breathe and eddies still swirl around pedestrian feet.

Edgar was contemplating that very phenomenon as he meandered through the blurry streets. Early morning, or what passes for it, and the Eye in the Sky was only just peeking over the skyline. Edgar was also contemplating something that had been lurking in his head for a while now, a little thing that was beginning to look like a much bigger thing.

The glares.

People were starting to glare at him too, even when he was alone. Eyes everywhere, tracking his movements—there was always one on every street, worked into the crowd. He wished he knew what they wanted. He wished they would stop _looking_ at him.

But now the city was empty, hungover or slinking out of the light cycle with a black parasol at maximum coverage. The city was empty, and thus safe, and Edgar was alone with the whole of the afterlife spread out at his feet. Something felt different about today; there was something mounting in the wings like wind gathering in the north. A storm was brewing. It made him pensive.

Eventually, he came across a familiar figure on the street corner, curled up under one of the sickly trees that were not trees lining Cocytus Avenue. They weren't trees because trees have bright green leaves and thick brown bark, and the closest things to leaves these had were twiggy branches that spread out into countless little gray thorns. And Jimmy sat like a ghost under the twisting fingers with his knees tucked up under his chin, currents of fog swirling around his boots.

The younger man was glaring off into space, so Edgar quietly took a seat next to him and stretched out jean-clad legs. "You feel it too?" he asked, leaning back

Jimmy turned to him, and just like that the dark look evaporated. "Feel what? Boredom? You're fuckin' right I'm bored, there's nothin' to do this time of day."

Edgar smiled. "How _have_ you managed to survive this long in a world without TV?"

"I watch you suck at life," the kid replied promptly. "'S real entertainin'."

"Well it's a comfort to know that my unlife has some meaning. How shall I serve my God-given purpose today?"

Jimmy grinned, and suddenly the whole expression was genuine. " I dunno, intrigue my mental capacities."

"My, what big words," Edgar remarked. Jimmy's (still sort of eerie) giggles bounced off the walls and echoed down the empty streets. "Alright. For your astonishing cerebral prowess: what weighs six ounces, sits in a tree, and is very dangerous?"

Jimmy appeared to think about it very seriously for a moment, and then slammed a fist into his palm. "A sparrow with a _machine gun_."

For a beat, Edgar simply looked at his friend—and then he burst out laughing, so hard that he fell sideways onto the dingy concrete. He lay there gasping while Jimmy looked down at him with this dignified sort of _what are you laughing at_ look, which just made him laugh harder.

"Well what's the answer _s'posed_ to be?" the thief demanded, looking put out.

"It's—hah—not really important—" and then Edgar broke down laughing again.

Eventually, he did manage to stop laughing and change the subject. Al rose up over the top of the nearest building as they talked, and the clouds around their ankles dissipated into nothing. Edgar traced the lines on his palm as they spoke, creating the same shapes over and over.

"I just don't get this whole anime thing," Jimmy was saying, exasperation coloring his voice. "I mean, we got cartoons of our own. We got comic books of our own. It's not gonna go anywhere, you mark my words. Five, ten years from now, an' nobody's gonna remember this whole _anime_ thing. By 2000, I bet—"

The words washed over the street, filling empty places with notes of enthusiasm or irritation, painted the air with a spinning palette of rapidly changing emotions. Edgar sat back and listened. The kid was dressed in one of those striped shirts so popular with the gothic underground these days, and it lent him the appearance of one mass murderer's evil twin—or perhaps the good twin. It was hard to imagine a creature like Johnny having an evil twin. On the other hand…

"—And I say we get some tacos," Jimmy suggested, popping a hole in Edgar's thought-bubble.

"Ah, what?" The older man shook his head, realizing that he'd zoned out pretty badly. "Why?"

Jimmy gave him a pitying look. "Man really needs a reason to get a taco in your world? That's sad, dude."

"So I've been told." Edgar stood and brushed the concrete dust off his pants, because of course Jimmy had won this argument the moment he started it. "Apparently, my neighborhood of reality is not a particularly desirable one, though it really does have some lovely trees on the east side."

Jimmy slung an arm around his shoulder and pushed them off in the direction of the Taco Hell. By now all the marginally respectable establishments were opening up, so there really _was_ no time like the present. In any case, it would take a while to reach the restaurant as it was a ways across the city and back towards Asphodel Fields (which Edgar was determined to call it, despite the rest of the underworld simply referring to it as "the fucking apartments").

"Don't want nothin' to do with that neighborhood," Jimmy announced, nose turned up. "Bet it's got rows an' rows of white picket fences an' apple trees. All the kids play baseball an' nobody has sex till they're married."

"What, is my life some kind of fifties sitcom?"

"You call it the fifties; I call it the Stone Age."

Edgar raised a brow. "You know, there's nothing wrong with a lack of premarital sex. The fact that you couldn't pull it off doesn't invalidate it for the rest of humanity."

Jimmy gave him another pitying look that spoke volumes. "Course not. An' you had consensual intercourse before. Uhuh."

Ducking out from under his friend's arm, Edgar felt his face go hot. "Teenagers. Jesus Christ. And must you twist all my stories into such ugly knots?"

"Twist nothin'." The younger man leered. "Satan's own truth. Now, if you wanna _do_ somethin' about it, y'know 'm always happy to help…"

"Lay off, will you?" Edgar asked, feeling rather tried suddenly. This always came up, especially lately, and he was tired of saying _no_ over and over again. You tell a guy you love him _once_, and suddenly he's pulling out the silk bed sheets. Not that Jimmy owned silk bed sheets.

"Well why the fuck not?" Jimmy shot back, crossing his arms. "'S not like you can get pregnant."

"That's _not _it," the older man groaned.

"Well then what is it?"

Edgar looked around helplessly, and in his head there was a flash of old memory—a tearstained note, a rain-covered window in the middle of winter, an old joke that was never funny*—and then he was slamming the door shut and locking it away the same way he always had, and he couldn't explain any of it because he didn't know himself, didn't _want_ to know himself.

"It's not that."

Jimmy frowned and turned towards him properly, a flash of total seriousness in his dark eyes. "I'm startin' to think you don't trust me," he said, as if now was not the first time the thought had plagued him. "Maybe you like me, yeah, maybe y'even _love_ me. But I don't… Edgar, can you gimme one good reason? Can you just… tell me what the hell you're thinkin'?"

And he waited. He waited for longer than maybe he should have, while his best friend tried to think of something that wasn't a lie but also wasn't the truth. And finally he sighed, uncrossed his arms, and started walking again.

"Never mind, Edgar," he said, boots thumping against the pavement.

The older man dashed to catch up with him. "It's just—"

"Nah," Jimmy cut him off, "don't sweat it. I'm just bein' melodramatic. C'mon, let's get a taco."

And the murdered men continued on their way, a question hanging between them like an empty noose—unanswered, but ignored for now.

-0-

To say the Taco Hell was even less agreeable than usual that day would be an understatement of Herculean proportions. By the time that the two friends entered the establishment, a morning crowd had jammed itself into the assortment of booths and formed a curling, disorderly line in front of the cash register. More than twenty pairs of eyes turned towards the door as it swung open, and immediately a low white noise of whispering began to slither between the poorly upholstered seats. Edgar got nervous fast.

"I'm not likin' this," Jimmy whispered, apparently in agreement. "Feels like the start'a somethin' bad."

Edgar's gaze flickered uneasily between damned patrons. "It's only the first meal of the light cycle," he murmured, "so hopefully no one wants to cause trouble."

"An' I don't mind tellin' you," the younger man said, voice still low, "that this is freakin' me out. Let's make it fast, okay? You get us some food, I'll get the rest of the shit."

The eyes locked onto Edgar nearly burned a hole in the back of his neck as he gave a quick little nod and slid into line. In his peripheral vision, he caught the movement of people nudging each other, flashes of recognition going off like cameras throughout the room. This, he supposed tensely, is what happens when you walk into a room with too many people who recognize you for all the wrong reasons.

He was rubbing his hands together hard enough to start a fire when Jimmy came bounding up to his side moments later, worry all but forgotten.

"They have sporks!" he exclaimed, waving a white spoonfork with glee.

Edgar looked around nervously as the whispering jacked up a couple decibels. All eyes zeroed in on the plastic utensil.

"Put it away," he hissed. "_Now_. I don't know why, but that thing's getting them all agitated."

Around the room, people were starting to stand.

"_This_ thing?" Jimmy frowned. "That's—"

The mass of patrons moved in a little closer.

"—That's wacky!"

There was a split second of icy silence, and then the room erupted in a tsunami of wild shouts that nearly busted the glass panes in the windows—and riding the crest of that wave, a booming voice cried: "GET THEM!"

Edgar stood stunned as the mob came crashing down on them, but Jimmy was fast—no doubt from years of dodging everyone from the police to his own friends—and jumped over the register bar, dragging his friend behind. They tumbled to the grimy floor as the mob closed over the spot they'd been standing only seconds before, and the cash register burst into flames as a mass of boiling oil missed their heads. The scent of fries and burning presidents filled the air.

The mob eyed the popping flames warily as they flared up across the oil-slicked countertop—apparently, no one wanted to get too close. For the moment at least, they were at an impasse.

"What the hell did you _do_?" Edgar hissed, teeth gritted.

"I didn't do anything. Why do you _always_ assume I did something?"

"Because you usually do!"

"Do not."

"Yeah? What about that poor girl's kitten?"

"God, let it _go_ Edgar, that was _one time_—"

BOOM

The two men looked up at the blackened remains of the cash register. Edgar felt his jaw drop.

"What in God's name was _in _there?"

But the fire was dying down, and now the mob was creeping closer, and one man at the forefront of the mass had his bulging eyes locked on Jimmy with enough focus to shame a Jedi. Damnit, if somebody's head exploded…

_(head exploded?)_

"Hey you!" Edgar shouted at Bulgy, because he looked like some kind of impromptu leader. "What's your problem? We never did anything to you!"

The crazed looking man pointed a shaking finger at Jimmy. "That guy _disemboweled_ me with a spork!" he screamed, and the mass around him shook their fists.

"He…"

Rapid images flashed through Edgar's head—_Lone Murderer Spares None,_ three men with a vendetta, _Carnage at the Taco Hell_, a thin figure with one skeletal hand on the lever, déjà vu in an alley way…

"Of course," the dead man muttered, disgusted with himself. "They think you're _Johnny_."

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, but just then the first wave of the mob flung themselves over the sooty counter and he was suddenly much more interested in rolling sideways and dashing towards the window. Jimmy took one look at the dusty glass and reached for a chair. Edgar grabbed his arm.

"I am not crawling through broken glass, dead or not!"

"Fine!" the teen shouted back; he placed a hand on either edge of the window frame and _pushed_—and the window popped right out into the street, followed speedily by two dead men.

"How'd you do that?" Edgar demanded, jumping to his feet.

"Shitty old building," Jimmy replied, from the ground, "the frames were deterioratin' anyways."

The older man might have inquired further, but a large, angry man was squeezing through the window after them, and now didn't seem to be the best time. Another building stood about ten feet away, and Jimmy dragged them around the front of it to catch their breath.

Edgar looked at his friend, heart pounding a mile a minute. "Well what now?"

"I was hopin' you'd tell me."

Judging from the expression, they both knew full well that this wasn't exactly the hiding place of the century, and pretty soon the mob was going to remember that the front door was unlocked and come pouring through there.

"We could go back to the apartment," Edgar suggested, trying to look around the side of the building without being seen. "Nobody knows which one you live in. We'd be safe for a while, anyways. Gather up our things."

"…You still have that knife I gave you?"

Nonplussed, Edgar reached into his pocket for the weapon. "Well, yes. I never leave it. But what does…"

"Never know when you need one," Jimmy replied. His right hand opened to reveal one of his own. "Yeah, apartment it is. We can probably lose them if we go though the Fifth Ring. It's a detour, but not by much."

"Alright. Count of three, and then we run for it?"

Jimmy started to nod, and then broke out in silent giggles, startling his companion. Edgar squinted at him. Surely now was not the time for hysteria.

"'S just…" The younger man grinned and leaned into the wall. "Remember how we met? The very first time?"

Oh.

Edgar looked away, and smiled despite himself. Everything went in circles, didn't it? Shame that this mob was so much more determined that that first one had been, but then, he supposed they might have had it too good for too long anyway.

"Count of three."

A mass of voices bounded through the air. They'd found the front door.

"One…"

"two…"

"Three!"

-0-

The mad dash carried them all but three blocks to the apartment, when the plan hit a major snag. As Edgar was stepping out from under the shadows of a deserted nightclub, three human bloodhounds planted themselves firmly in his path. The dead man glanced back at his companion, hoping against hope that they were allies of some sort. Jimmy's expression, unfortunately, said it all.

"You want somethin'?" the teen snarled at them, black nails digging into palms until they all but disappeared.

The ugly one in the middle laughed, a harsh noise that sounded more like a dying animal than a proper human chuckle. The zit-faced woman on his right echoed the noise impressively.

"Thought you could get away from us, fuckers," the ugly one said, obviously relishing his victory. "You fucking fuckers don't even fucking know."

"He swears more than _you_," Edgar murmured, glancing quickly at Jimmy—who looked a little offended. Whether that was because Edgar had implicated him or because someone had dared to oust him from his position as supreme-disrespectful-bastard was anyone's guess.

"Fuckers thought you could fuck everyone over by hiding out here like fucking sissies. Well fuck you cowards, we have you fucking cornered."

In spite of his better judgement, Edgar was impressed. "Do you realize," he said, curiously, "that you've used the word 'fuck' in every known grammatical form?"

"Shut the fuck up!" Ugly shouted, pulling something sharp and ominous from his pocket. "You fuckers don't have the upper hand _this_ time."

"Yeah," the third vigilante chimed in, a completely uninteresting male specimen. "You guys are in trouble now."

Ugly glared at him. "See," he continued, "I bet you guys thought you could just sneak back to your little homo-cave and have a nice safe fuck while the rest of us were out sniffing around for you. Well, not to-fucking-day, fuckers. You, faggot, you think you can off half a city population and get away with it? Not on our watch."

Sighing, Edgar tried to fix things one more time. "You seem to be laboring under a case of mistaken identity. Really, I understand. They do look a lot alike. But if you'll just notice—"

He never got to finish his sentence, because at that second Zits came flying at him with another of those sharp, ominous objects and probably would have gouged his eye out if Jimmy hadn't managed to get his hand between the point and Edgar's iris just in time. Metal met flesh. Time stalled.

Blood. The universe zeroed down to nothing but Jimmy's blood and Jimmy's hand and the line of silver embedded in it. Nothing but blood, and a sudden snap of rage.

And then Zits was reeling back, clutching her own hand, and Edgar had his own knife clenched so tightly that his knuckles were going white. There was a thin sheen of blood on the edge. You can put two plus two together.

The two parties stared at each other.

Ugly seemed to come to a conclusion first. "That sucks for Lucy," he pronounced, suddenly grinning like whether it sucked or not was none of his concern, "but the fuck of it all is that you guys're _still_ outnumbered."

The unpleasant crew sprouted smiles, one face at a time. Zits—Lucy—was still clutching her hand, but the cut had been shallow and it was easy to see the blood already beginning to scab over with inhuman speed.

Three vigilantes closed in for the proverbial kill.

Edgar glanced around desperately. Surely there was something he could do, some way to get them out of this mess, some way to make sure that the blood still leaking out of his partner's hand would not be replicated elsewhere on his body. What he needed was a clever plan, or failing at that, a bigger weapon.

Generally, the dead man was something like a pacifist—do unto others, love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, so on and so forth—and normally he was pretty much against using violence to settle scores, but this time there seemed to be no other option and a part of him was now seething under the surface, egging him on. What he needed was a weapon, something bigger, something that topped this miniature arms race. Something to shock and awe, something like…

Edgar looked sideways at his friend, backing away from the crew.

"You know what I just remembered?"

They took a step back, and the strangers took a step forward.

"What?"

They took another step back.

"I'm from Heaven, right?"

The strangers moved closer.

"Yeah? And?"

Edgar eyed the group opposite them and came to a decision.

"I've got one weapon we haven't tried."

So he focused on the nearest vigilante, reached down to the very bottom of his decent-human-being soul and dredged up every last drop fear and anger and that black fury that had come rushing up to the surface the second that blood appeared on Jimmy's hand, and Edgar found a well of it just underneath and the more he pulled on it the more he just wanted to blast this guy into oblivion—

_BAM_

Edgar jolted backwards, eyes flying open to find himself covered in blood. Also, the guy in front of him was newly headless.

Jimmy gaped. The remaining two took a good long look at their friend's metaphysical corpse, grabbed it by the ankle, and rushed off down the street like the Devil himself was on their heels—which he most emphatically was not.

There was a moment of silence while Edgar tried to scrape the bits of soul off his shirt. That. Was. _Disgusting_.

"Holy shit," Jimmy breathed, at last, swinging around. "You did _not_ tell me you could do that."

Edgar grimaced at the remaining gore. "I'd forgotten. The angel at the front desk told me about it when I first showed up, you know, five minute orientation. I never imagined I'd have a reason to use it."

"So you just… murdered a guy."

The older man looked up. "Oh no," he assured, taken aback. "He'll be back to himself in an hour or so. Good as new, if a little bit put out. Death is all relative."

"But still," Jimmy insisted, grinning now, "y'blew a guy up for me. Now that's _romantic_."

Shaking his head, Edgar resumed the trek that had been so unpleasantly interrupted and gestured for his companion to follow along. They slid back into the shadows.

"If that's your idea of romantic, then I'm glad we aren't dating."

A speculative look passed over the younger man's face, but it was gone before he could remark on it.

And so they went.

-0-

Safely locked away in the damned man's apartment, the friends had returned to their usual positions with Jimmy hanging over the back of the couch and Edgar sitting leaned up against the wall. He never _had _finished installing that crown molding, and now it looked like he wouldn't have much of a chance.

"People 'round here made a lotta 'ssumptions," Jimmy muttered, examining the cut across his palm.

"Well," Edgar mused, "perhaps it's no coincidence they're all in Hell."

The younger man made a noise of agreement. "Like I ever did _anything_ on that scale. Jesus. The psycho tore my chest cavity open and smashed my heart with a hammer… and… um… well, I sure as shit never did anything like that."

Edgar refrained from pointing out that he _had_ managed to kill two people in a fashion that was acutely unpleasant in its own regard. There was no point in bringing it up; they both knew it anyways.

"I do like the fact they think we're fucking," Jimmy added, after a moment. "Think I'll take it as some kinda complement."

"At least it's not an insult," Edgar muttered. Louder, he replied, "Well with the way you intercepted that stab, it's not surprising people that think we're involved. You can be quite gallant when the mood takes you."

"Don't you go insultin' me, Edgar Vargas. I saw you blow that guy up. You can be pretty damn violent when _the mood takes you_."

Perhaps it evened out, then. The older man grinned. "Still," he said at last, "I do think it's funny that people make all these torrid assumptions about me, when in fact, I think the only place in Hell that I _haven't_ been is your room."

Jimmy looked surprised. "Well, seems to me… we oughta _rectify _the situation."

He jumped over the sofa and crouched down in front of Edgar, eyes glittering. A wave of nervous paranoia overtook the older man for the second time that day.

"What happened to a man's room being his temple?" the older man asked, not certain that he liked where this was going. It's one thing to want, but a very different thing to _get_.

Jimmy giggled. "Say I changed my mind. B'sides, after you got me all turned on with that _violence_ earlier, y'can have anythin' your goody-two-shoes heart desires."

"Really, I don't think—"

But the teen had grabbed his arm and dragged him off to the bedroom, unwilling to take no for an answer. Edgar had a bad feeling about this. Besides the fact that he had long associated the closed door and all that lay behind it with the darker places in Jimmy's past (murder, greif, perversion, all those thing that the kid had tried to keep to himself), there was definitely something in the air that made him nervous in its own right.

He had a bad feeling.

There was the unmistakable sound of a door closed behind them—Edgar turned in an instant, heartbeat skyrocketing out of control. Jimmy grinned at him, hand pressed against the door. He hadn't missed the jittery reflex.

"It's just my room," the younger man said, that unnerving tone coating every syllable. Edgar remembered it from his first ventures into Jimmy's world, before he knew anything at all about the murderer he'd inevitably befriended.

Edgar took a discreet deep breath and turned back to the room. Regardless of the edge it had him on, there was no way he planned to pass up such an opportunity. He took in the details as quickly as possible, noting the small closet and the boots in the corner, and the black sheets over the bed. A spark of a grin lit his face.

"No severed heads, then?" he asked, inspecting a small knife embedded in the plaster.

"Haven't stocked up since I got here. 'S a bit difficult convincing the dead to part with them all over again."

Maybe it was the 'turned on' comments earlier, but he found he wasn't entirely comfortable with having Jimmy at his back; as he made a quick circuit around the bedroom, Edgar stayed angled towards the boy. Another quick glance back at his friend. Yes, after all the innuendo flying back and forth since the start of the day, he really didn't feel like a bedroom was a good place to end the journey. He hadn't forgotten their argument so much earlier. Something was in the air, and it prickled his skin.

"Y'look… _nervous,_" the younger man pointed out, crossing his arms loosely. "Think I'm gonna chain you to the bed?"

"Of course not," Edgar replied hurriedly, though he couldn't help glancing at the bedpost—just checking to see if that was possible.

Jimmy raised a brow and dropped his arms. "What, worried about little old rapist me?"

Palms out, Edgar took a step back. "No, no, I trust you not to do any of that. I mean, I'm still here aren't I? We both know you're past it, and _you _know I've told you this before."

"Yeah?" Jimmy sauntered towards him, calculating. There was a flicker in his expression, like switch being flipped or a circuit sparking on. "Sure you aren't just a little scared? Y'look like I could hold your _hand_ an' give you a heart attack. Maybe you're finally havin' those second thoughts? All this time, all I had to do was drag you into my room. An' I thought you trusted me."

"I thought _you_ trusted _me_!" A spark of indignant irritation flared up in Edgar's chest. Was he _never_ going to prove this once and for all? It was ironic, goddamn _ironic_, how little faith he got. It wasn't his fault if the teen was incurably insecure—why was it that the Devil himself was easier to convince than one jaded nineteen-year-old?

"I ain't stupid," Jimmy muttered, black disappointment seeping through his tone. He took a step even closer, pressing a hand into Edgar's chest, just above the heart. "You think you're safe? Maybe I can't kill you, but I can still hurt you. Break your neck, fuck you while the bones are healin'. Press a nail here—" he trailed a finger up to Edgar's neck, "—bleed you out, stop you from screamin'… You oughta be scared. Maybe you're just now figuring that out. Better late than never, I guess."

God that was frustrating, but underneath the annoyance Edgar's heartbeat pounded, and he was certain that Jimmy could feel the raging pulse through his skin. Words sent adrenaline spinning through his body, lighting nerves on fire and catching his breath short. And in the place where the younger man's nail dug a crescent into his flesh, a shiver flashed down through his body. But not precisely, though Jimmy might mistake it, because he was afraid.

"I'm _not_ scared, and I never have been." He met the nearly black eyes that searched his own, furiously seeking out some elusive answer. Go ahead then, look all you want.

The thief unclenched his hand and wrapped it around Edgar's neck, thumb pressing into to place below his ear, where the racing heartbeat pounded closest against the skin. The older man let out a shaky breath but refused to flinch. After a moment, Jimmy stepped back to the edge of his bed.

"Then why don't you come here," he murmured, "an' try t'prove me wrong?"

For the flash of an instant, Edgar remembered their one kiss—that they never spoke of again, that had said everything Jimmy couldn't say in words. And his skin was electrified, and somehow he had known this was coming. He'd felt it.

Now or never. He stepped forward and pressed his lips against Jimmy's.

There was a split second when he realized that this was all real, this was his idea and this was him crossing that one last line (_he can hurt me he can hurt me he can hurt me now)_, and then he shut his eyes tight and kissed harder, hands holding the boy in place. No more running. He was tired of running, he was tired of constant subconscious war and distrust. Tired of saying _no._ His tongue slid into the younger man's mouth, curling against the slick inside. Beautiful. The taste was heat and motion, dark and wonderfully human.

Why had he been so scared of this?

Finally, Jimmy seemed to realize what was going on and threaded his fingers through the other's hair, pressing them as tightly against each other as humanly possible. His tongue slid against Edgar's with hungry urgency, as if he was afraid that the older man might come to his senses at any second. Lungs began to ache for oxygen, and Edgar's vainly heaving chest screamed that he was suffocating.

Panting, he pulled away. Black eyes burned into him, impossible to read. His partner leaned in, lips brushing Edgar's ear—a lick along the curve, barely touching, a bite that made his heartbeat jump.

"Let me do this," the thief whispered, breath ghosting past him, sending shivers from the place where saliva lay cooling. "Just once. Let me…"

Jimmy dropped to his knees, one hand around his partner's thigh. He looked up, licked his lips, and in a second of recognition Edgar groaned. This, then. Helpless, he tangled his fingers in the boy's spiky hair and bit the inside of his cheek. No more running…

The sound of a zipper sliced through Edgar's deep breaths, and Jimmy curled tapered fingers around layers of cloth, dragging them down to reveal the painfully hard manhood—though Edgar hardly felt like a man, aching so quickly for the barest of touches like a boy grinding helplessly into his mattress. He hissed as Jimmy ran a finger down the length, and his knees went weak as Jimmy swiped a thumb over the head. The younger man noticed the tremble, grinned, and slid his lips around the length so quickly that stars shot across Edgar's vision as he sucked.

"Oh, oh my god," he whispered, closing his eyes tightly.

Wet heat enveloped him—god, he hadn't known something could be so good it _hurt_—and he could feel Jimmy's tongue stroke the underside, tracing the contour of throbbing veins. When it pressed into his slit, the shock of screaming nerves was enough to stun his eyes wide open—and the sight was something he could only call earth-shattering, of Jimmy looking up at him with his familiar, beautiful mouth full of red, aching cock.

And that was when, unsurprisingly, Edgar came gasping into the younger man's mouth.

A few panting moments later, Jimmy pulled off him and swallowed—Oh, god, what was that supposed to mean?

The younger man rose to his feet, ran a thumb over his lips. "Could've warned me," he muttered, not looking particularly bothered. There was a satisfied glitter in his eyes.

Edgar looked away, face burning hotly enough that there might have been a visible blush. "I, ah, I didn't… I've never… you know, that."

"Really?" Jimmy looked him up and down. There was something about the way he did it that made Edgar suspect he was pleased to have been the first. "Must've had some real stingy girlfriends. But o'course, that was the easy one, an' now we get to have _fun_. I think you had some practice with the real deal?"

Jimmy slid his hands up under the older man's shirt, tracing the curve of his spine, a stray thumb barely brushing the peak of a covered nipple. Reflexes completely shot, Edgar gave up and wrapped his arms around the thin waist.

"I don't think we should…"

The thief shifted closer, lips just a breath away from lips. "Edgar," he whispered, eyes closed, "your jeans are still open and my mouth tastes like cum. Do you _really_ want to stop now?"

Well, when you put it like that…

Then Jimmy kissed him, and he could taste the sex on his tongue, salty and god it was _his._ The stray thumb found its way back, teasing sensitive skin until Edgar bit his lip and pressed forward into it, and the sharp nail dug in so deeply that it might have cut.

Jimmy's shirt was on the floor immediately, and Edgar was pretty sure he was the one who pulled it off. He ran fingers across barely-visible ribs, delicate collar bones, realizing with a flash of heat how vulnerable the boy was—physically, so easy to break. He touched the inside of the wrist, traced the blue veins that Jimmy had mirrored not so long before, and shuddered as his nails scraped over them.

And then the younger man was looking at him, black eyes burning. "Bite me," he ordered, tucking one long finger under Edgar's chin and drawing him up to a place on the side of his neck. "C'mon, man. Bite me."

Unable to refuse the boy anything, Edgar sank his teeth in. He pulled away, licked the bright red skin, and—for absolutely no good reason—bit down again, harder this time.

"F-fuck…" Jimmy hissed, and threw Edgar down onto the bed.

Glasses came off first, tossed to the floor without ceremony, then the shirt, and by the time Edgar got his senses back Jimmy was straddling him, tugging on his own zipper with shaking haste. His hand brushed Edgar's length, striking fire into the flesh, and Jimmy paused to consider the hardness under his fingers. Quick as lightning, he moved so that unclothed hips pressed down onto bare erection, hard flesh against hard flesh.

Sensation raced through Edgar, so overwhelming that he could barely breathe, and he wanted nothing more than to grab Jimmy and grind up into him until he came all over the boy's legs. Before he could try, though, Jimmy was holding him down and rutting against him, desperately smearing precum between them.

The furious grinding halted too quickly, and Edgar bit down on a whine—regardless of the fact that he was clearly out of his mind, he was still not willing to degrade himself that far. He couldn't help, though, arching up into the body above him to seek out whatever friction he could find.

"Hold on," Jimmy gasped, teeth gritted, fingers white from pressing against the sheets. "Don't wanna waste you on the school kid shit." In a voice that was more breath than words, he muttered: "Might not get another chance."

Edgar closed his eyes, feeling his heart jackhammer in his chest. "I'm really not that picky, you know."

"Yeah?" Jimmy panted, rolling off. From what Edgar could tell, he was reaching for something under the bed. "Lucky thing I am."

And then he was standing, tugging off his pants, and Edgar couldn't decide if it was okay to stare at the unashamedly florid cock. Whatever the teen had been looking for was in his hand, and he fell forward in a crouch over Edgar. The view was stunning. He lowered his head, lips to the older man's ear.

"You," he said, "are going to fuck me."

Before Edgar could protest, or even truly process, that comment, Jimmy had the bottle open and his fingers coated in clear liquid. Head turned, the younger man reached behind him and slid slick fingers into himself.

"What the hell?" Edgar breathed, trying not to end up any more aroused and confused than he already was.

Jimmy drew a quick breath, but his eyes glanced sideways. "Preparation," he hissed, "much better this way. Just think—" quick breath, "—in a second, this gets to be you."

Edgar saw his wrist twisting and couldn't look away. His own hand slid over the sheets, over his hip, wrapped around his aching dick for just a touch—Jimmy noticed and covered the hand with his own, stilling it. The world flipped, and then Jimmy was flat on the mattress looking up at him, grinning up at him. A bead of precum dripped onto the boy's thigh.

"You lead," Jimmy whispered, wrapping his legs around Edgar's waist. His spiked hair was limp over his forehead, and his eyeliner was smudged from sweat, and his thin lips were red from kissing and sucking.

So Edgar kissed him again.

By now his cock was burning, deep red and desperate for touch—in one quick motion he thrust into his partner. Vision blurred, and before he could stop himself he was moaning. God, but that was _nothing_ like he remembered. He tried to find a word, somewhere in the chaos that was currently his mind, for why he was now afraid to move for fear of complete sensory overload.

"Tight," he managed, realizing his eyes were shut.

"Fucking right," Jimmy shot back, curling his arms loosely around Edgar's neck.

At the risk of short circuiting his central nervous system, Edgar found himself pulling out—ah—and driving back in—_god_—and then it was a kind of rhythm, in and out, fire between his legs burning him away. He caught Jimmy desperately fisting his own length, underneath him, and matched the hand with his own.

He could hear the boy cursing, moaning _fucks_ and breathy _damns_, and bent down to cover his mouth again, moaning deep in his own throat.

God, it was as if he'd never had sex before.

He must have hit something terrible and wonderful with one thrust, because Jimmy groaned out loud and pushed back against him, which sent them both spinning into a place that Edgar couldn't comprehend, where there were only two rhythms in the universe. He could feel it building, pressure mounting inside of him, and he quickened his strokes, tightened his fist around Jimmy's cock. Almost…

The teen came into his hand, body snapping rigid, coating his palm with white liquid. He looked down at Jimmy, this kid that he loved more than anything in the goddamn universe, caught a flash of bright understanding in a moment that seared the universe, and came too with a cry that hung ringing somewhere between an alleluia and a curse.

He managed to move before he passed out, like he knew he would, like he always did, and he thought he heard himself whispering the same words over and over again, but then, it was hard to hear anything over the jackhammer of his heart.

"_I love you I love you Iloveyou—"_

TBC


	20. No Endings, In the End

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

_My friends, we have reached THE END, as hard as it is to believe. I love you all (Muda, Jynx, this one's for y'all), and your reviews have helped make (and hopefully will continue to make) this project my favorite of all the fanfiction I've ever written. There's a chapter after this one explaining all the little details of the story, for anyone with time to kill._

_Here's hoping that I haven't completely pissed off The Man Upstairs with this one!_

_Much Love, Dezzy_

* * *

_I know you're gonna leave me in the morning  
when you wake up  
leave me with some kind of proof it's not a dream-_

_'Cause you are the only exception._

_-Paramore_

Familiar scene:

Light pouring in through the window, fabric pressed up against the curve of one cheek, ribs and skinny wrists against his back and across his waist. Awkward, in a larger social sense, but easy and—dare he think it—familiar. Comfortable. He could have stayed like that forever, suspended in time, and finally stumbled his way into that bliss that he had never managed to find in Heaven. He could have, except that something was missing.

He had been mistaken. There was no light pouring in.

And that was, well, odd. So Edgar cracked one eye open and nearly stunned himself back into the dream world. There was no light because there was no window, and the fabric under him was too soft, and that was because he was lying on sheets instead of couch upholstery, which meant…

He was in a bed.

Jimmy's bed.

And then his regrettably accurate memory kicked in with all the less than savory details.

Before he knew what he was doing, Edgar had actually thrown himself out of bed and onto the floor, nails scrabbling at the carpet in a desperate half-awake attempt at escape. Breath slammed in and out of him, and he'd moved way too fast because now his head was spinning and his vision was screwed up. Oh god, what the hell, had he really…

There was a rustle above him, and Jimmy peered over the edge of the mattress, eyes smudged with black kohl. The kid sighed and propped his chin up on one hand, a dull sort of peeved look slinking across his features.

"Don't s'pose you could wait another five minutes before you start freakin' out?"

Edgar looked at him. His mouth opened but no sound came out.

Jimmy frowned in sort of a wistful way. "Didn't think so."

It was then that Edgar realized he was really quite naked and snatched the rumpled sheet down off Jimmy's bed, cinching it around his chest like a man dying of hypothermia. Jesus Christ, he was naked in Jimmy's presence and Jimmy had seen him naked and he wasn't wearing any clothes and neither was Jimmy and _oh god he was naked._

He glanced back up, and the teen was still looking at him with this stiff expression. Nothing held still in his head, thoughts were spinning around and around, flashes of memory and this pit of guilt and humiliation threatened to swallow him up.

"Oh my god," he groaned, pulling his bare knees up to his forehead. "I fucked a teenager. I—" _made embarrassing noises and I came in every available orifice and I let him see me naked and what the _hell_ was I thinking, I would have been _excommunicated_ for this…_

"I'm fucking nineteen!" Jimmy shouted, indignant. "I'm not some helpless altar boy, you asshole."

"I fucked a teenager," Edgar repeated, mouth going dry. _I let him… God, what was I thinking? He's Jimmy and I'm Edgar and it was never supposed to go this far! I can't… I can't get hurt anymore… _

"_Fuck_ you're bad at this morning-after thing," Jimmy sighed, and added something about coffee that Edgar hardly heard.

"I—You—" the older man had another awful thought. "Oh my god, do you have any diseases? Do_ I_ have any diseases? Can dead people even get diseases? Christ, I bet I've got Underworld VD now, that's just my goddamn luck. Was I even allowed to have sex? Oh god, oh, fuck—"

Edgar looked up at him, feeling the panic splash through his buzzing head. Beneath it laid a dark landscape of real fear—inexpressible terror at the prospect of pain, the look in a rabbit's eye right before the fox swoops in. All the old angles burst into sharp contrast. Everything looked different in the morning light.

_You're Jimmy and I'm Edgar and this wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't supposed to—_

"What was I thinking?" he groaned, hardly hearing his own voice. His thoughts went around and around and around, creating a wall against reality, trapping him in his own accusations. Memories became reproaches became lists of all the different things he'd done wrong, building steadily on top of each other, every mistake and every possible consequence and—

"Fuck you," his opposite growled, so venomous that it sliced through even the buzz of horror in Edgar's head. "_Fuck_ you. I can't watch this!"

Jimmy stood up—black baggy pants hung off his hips, he must have thrown them on after Edgar passed out last night—stalked to the bedroom door and flung it open, the tarnished knob cracking plaster as it slammed into the wall.

"There! Just leave then!" he shouted, pointing with a shaking hand. "Door's open, nobody's keepin' you here!"

Edgar stared at the boy, uncomprehending. Please don't let this be what he thinks this is. "…You… want me to leave?"

"Why's it matter what _I_ want?" Jimmy demanded, fists clenched and arms stiff against his sides. "You obviously can't take this shit anymore. Who am I to hold you down? Get out of here, before I tie you to the bed after all."

"But I…"

"_What_?" the younger man shouted. "Look, I'm tryin' to do the right thing here! If you got something to say, fuckin' say it _now_ or get _out_."

Now, that was offensive. Indignation shook some sense back into the older man, and he frowned. "Well first of all, there may still be a mob of crazed citizen out there who think I'm an accessory to murder."

Jimmy started to retort and caught himself on the first syllable, mouth open. "…oh."

"Yeah. And second of all," the older man went on, "I don't _want to leave._ What, can't a guy have a nervous breakdown in the safety of his friend's apartment without getting tossed out on his ear?"

"You... Friend? But I…" the teen trailed off, squinting and painfully baffled. "…you… You want to stay?"

"Well it's not like _leaving_ would help anything. I tried that once before, you might remember," Edgar pointed out, twisting the sheets with tense hands. "Just give me a minute, okay? I'm dealing with a metric ton of guilt here, not to mention how _embarrassing_ this all is. I'm naked for god's sake!"

_And I'm scared_, he thought_, but you don't need to know that right now_.

Jimmy looked at him, as if he was just noticing their situation for the first time. Edgar glanced down at the sheet around his middle and sighed. He didn't blame the kid, really. He hardly understood his own head—how can you be so sure that you want to _stay _even while you're wishing you could crawl into a hole and die again? The war in his skull was giving him the beginnings of a headache where the cannons of angst battered against his gray matter.

"Why'd you do it?" Jimmy asked him, now, quietly. "If you were just gonna freak out like this, why'd you do it?"

And even though he'd been asking himself basically the same question since he woke up, only then did Edgar stop and try to answer it rationally. Obviously, this had seemed like a good idea at the time. It must have. But why?

_(No more running_.)

Edgar turned his head and sighed. That's what he was doing—he was still running, even now. Trying to escape himself and Jimmy and all the things in both their pasts. Trying to pretend like he was happy with the way things had always been. He was running.

And just like he had been last night, he found that he was tired of it.

"Because…" he murmured, looking back up at his friend, "because I love you, I guess. And I was sick of pretending like it didn't matter."

"You love me," the teen echoed, a note of disbelief in his tired voice. "What about that massive meltdown you had five seconds ago? You _sure _you still love me?"

_Oh yes, that's flattering. _From his place on the ground, the older man shot him a disapproving look. "Of course I still love you. What, you didn't think some crisis of conscience was going to change that, did you?"

"Uh… well, _yeah_. I mean, you been putting me off for so long an' I figured, y'know, one day it was going to snap—it had to happen, sooner or later. Figured I might not see you again, after that."

_What,_ _like I'd just walk out on you after everything we've been through? _

Edgar looked hard at him and realized that yes, he really _had_ thought so. Jimmy had gone to sleep last night truly believing that it would be their last night together—that he would be alone come the morning. Maybe he would wake up in an empty bed, maybe they'd scream and shout and the door would slam behind him, maybe there would be tears and blame and Jimmy would accept it all without flinching. That's what he'd thought. That's what he'd expected.

The boy's pessimism never _ceased_ to astound. Did Edgar really seem so fickle? Did he seem so guilt-prone? Or was it just that any fool could see how tightly he was wrapped around his own core of hurt, even when he hardly realized it himself?

"Then my question," he said, "is why _you_ did it, if you thought I was just going to run away afterwards. That doesn't make any sense. I know you like having me around, it's not like you're dying to have the house to yourself."

A visible struggle flashed behind the younger man's eyes. Edgar wondered how much he would say, whether he'd say anything at all. Jimmy closed the door, quietly.

"I wanted proof that you… proof that you really wanted me, I guess," he answered at last, without really turning back. His nails dug into pale flesh. "I wanted to show you, wanted to… Just, needed to. I kept dreamin' about it, all the time, an' I'd wake up an' there wasn't a goddamn person in the room."

Edgar closed his eyes. "Why don't we ever talk these things through before we go and do something stupid?"

"Kills the romance," his companion replied, as if it was obvious.

Jimmy came back to him and lay down, exhausted. And they remained like that for a long time, where something seemed to linger in the silence—a word waiting to be said, perhaps, but Edgar was content to wait for it. He was tired of running, and it was pretty nice to finally lie there without making up excuses. All the rest could wait. Because honestly, he couldn't bring himself to regret any of it—Death, meeting Jimmy, the series of unfortunate events that had once made up his life—when they had all put him here, on the floor of a dingy apartment with Jimmy beside him, and that was all he really wanted out of the universe anyway.

"The really amazin' part," the teen muttered into his collar bone, "is how you know so much about me, an' you still wanna hang around. I don't get it. I'll never get it. You don't make any sense. I keep thinkin' I got you pinned, this time I got it figured out, an' then you go an' trounce all over the nearest thing to logic I got."

"You'll figure it out eventually. I have faith in your deductive abilities."

Which was code for "I'm _still_ not leaving you, nitwit."

And he was pretty sure the kid understood him.

"Y'know," Jimmy drawled, after a long moment, "you totally passed out after the big finish. I must be fuckin' _fantastic_."

And there went the mood. Edgar cringed. "Er. I don't want to talk about this."

As if that line of reasoning had ever stopped the kid before.

"Oh no, you're not gettin' out of this so easily. Tell you what ain't fair—I pour out my guts an' you won't even tell me why I was the only one awake when the lights went out. How's that for hypocrisy?"

_Or how's _this_ for hypocrisy? You wouldn't need to pour your guts out in the first place if you'd just learned to trust me properly a month ago._

But Jesus, he just slept with the kid. It wasn't like he had anything left to hide.

"It's sort of… embarrassing," he started, focusing carefully on the fascinating cracks of the ceiling. "The first time I… ah… I made love, I passed out right after I… yeah… and I ended up sprawled all over the poor girl. You know, at that college party. She had to push me off the bed. I thought I was just drunk and _that_ was the problem, but it happened the next time too, and the next time after that. And, um, last night. Well, last night was probably faster than usual. So… sorry."

Jimmy stared at him like he was a three-headed alien in a side-show exhibit. "You're kiddin' me."

"It's actually not quite as unusual as you think! In fact—"

"Yeah yeah yeah, you're weird an' I'm not surprised. Shut up an' make me breakfast."

Edgar looked up at him, incredulous. "So that's how it's going to be, is it? I make love to you and you show your gratitude by sending me to the kitchen?"

"Tell you what: make me waffles an' we can play teacher next time."

"And you think _that's_ a convincing argument?"

-0-

Edgar was cleaning up the waffle mix and associated pots and pans when Jimmy announced that he was going outside to take a look at the situation on the streets.

"An' before you ask, yeah, I'm good to walk. Pretty used to this scenario by now—well, y'know, minus the angry mobs an' the breakfast."

"Which I shouldn't have made for you," Edgar grumbled, more or less good naturedly. "But in all seriousness, I think this is a terrible idea. Let me go instead."

"Not a chance. You try an' go out there, I'll ductape you to the couch. Those streets're no place for a reasonable guy, head-explodin' powers or not."

"But if something awful happens to you, how am I supposed to know? What am I supposed to do?"

"This is Hell," Jimmy replied, grabbing his knife off the kitchen counter. "What's the worst that can happen?"

And so Edgar spent the next indeterminable amount of time alone in the apartment, drinking that last bottle of vodka left over from a few nights before. _The worst that could happen_, he decided, involved a lot of fire and a handful of nails, and a crowd of very angry citizens.

Which was not even going into all the other not-quite-as-bad-but-still-pretty-fucking-bad scenarios.

If you want something bad enough, you have to put yourself out on the line. You have to be willing to risk something. That was the point, the point of last night and the point of everything, really. Things can go wrong a hundred different ways—maybe it's your fault, maybe it's just bad luck. But when you reach over the fire, that's where you get hurt. That's where you get burned. And now Edgar had his hand back above the flames, catching smoke in the creases of his palms, because his stupid teenage partner suddenly decided to take responsibility for his problems. Because he'd suddenly decided that _something _was worth more than his own goddamn well-being.

"You're supposed to be a coward…" Edgar mumbled to the empty room, downing another mouthful of foul liquid. It tasted bad, but the alcohol calmed his nerves—proving once more that he had some issues of his own.

When did his worse half turn into such a god-forsaken _martyr?_ What happened to the kid who escaped through the window while Edgar was outside trying to bargain with his pursuers? What happened to the kid who hid in the dressing room while his friends fought their way out of a strip bar? What happened to Mr. Don't Give a Shit about Nobody?

Edgar drank some more.

"I'm not a hero," he continued, confiding in the air. "I let a student die, and I let people walk all over me for years, and I wasn't brave enough to fall in love until somebody shoved me into it, but…"

He glanced back at the bedroom, considering what it had always represented and the battle with himself that it had hosted only hours ago, and he remembered Bondye's talk of symbols and layers. His hands were burning, slowly but surely, and he couldn't bring himself to draw them out now.

"—But I'd do anything to keep him safe. I'd do anything to save him."

The room had nothing to reply, and the silence flowed on.

-0-

Jimmy stumbled back in some time later, closing the door and sliding down onto the dingy carpet, a mass of weary resignation. He'd never bothered to spike his hair that morning, so the black chunks hung limply over his eyes like a curtain.

"'S not good outside."

Edgar—essentially drunk, by now, but attentive—motioned for him to explain and silently thanked God for his return (because typically useless or not, Somebody Up There had just done him a massive favor).

Apparently, with a coat he'd stolen from a retail store and his disconcertingly chaotic hair, Jimmy had been able to slink into town with hardly a second look—the streets had been more or less empty anyways. He'd thought it strange but kept going, keeping to the side streets and listening out for sounds of civilization—or what passed for it around here. Deep into the heart of the city, Jimmy caught the first vibrations of the coming earthquake: the sound of countless far away voices talking over each other, layer on layer of them melded into one discordant rumble.

Bad sign.

He had slunk closer, slipping into alley ways as particular voices began to detach themselves from the mass. Just around the edge of the Wall-to-Wallmart, a sea of faces had gathered in a frenzied knot around a makeshift stage. Jimmy kept to the edge if the building, creeping towards the core of the mob for a better look at it. A figure stood in the far corner, speaking to someone one on the ground—Jimmy craned for a better look. He heard snatches of conversation around him, clips of demagoguery with the distinct sound of quotation. The man on the stage?

Someone nearby had hissed about a faggot, and someone farther away spat about a fascist.

The man on the stage stood up, adjusted his tie, and walked to the center of the platform. The crowd cheered. He grinned like a shark, looking out into the adoring mass, and in an instant, Jimmy recognized him.

"Cory," the teen announced, now, spitting the name like a curse.

"Cory who?" Edgar asked, nonplussed. "Do I know him?"

"Use your _head_ Edgar. The guy from the Second Circle? The one who threatened to date rape you?"

Edgar snapped his fingers. "You mean the one you punched."

"Uh… sure. If that's what you remember."

What Edgar _remembered_ was not as much the skeezy jerk as the fit of rage that had overtaken his friend for a few frightening seconds- wild eyes and flying fists- and Jimmy, for some reason, wanting to protect him. Not understanding why, but shaken somewhere deep down in his core by it. Had things begun to change even that long ago?

"So he's been shaking the city up into a riot while we were sleeping. Does _he_ hate you or _what?_"

Jimmy thumped his head back into the door, as if that would fix things somehow. "I musta _really_ pissed him off. An' here I thought I got away with it too. Man, I am so fucked—he's a born politician, the guy could convince communists to re-elect Regan. He knows I'm not Johnny, he _knows_. An' he doesn't give a shit. "

"So." Edgar corked the vodka, feeling suddenly and entirely sober. "What now?"

Jimmy said nothing for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling through his disheveled hair. Outside the window, the white sky turned gray—something was burning downtown. God, the people in this city couldn't be trusted with a simple _bonfire_.

"Now," Jimmy said, at last, "I ditch this place once an' for all. Pick up my shit an' leave while I still can."

"And go… where?"

"Dunno. Somewhere. Figure I'll start walking west an' see where it takes me… Company can't get any worse, right? Maybe they'll have some goddamn Italian food, wherever I end up. No big deal. I've done it before."

Edgar squinted at him. "You're just going to walk off to God-knows-where without a map or so much as a _clue _where you're headed? Really? That's your plan?"

Jimmy gave a half-hearted laugh. "Yeah, pretty-fucking-much."

"Alright then," Edgar replied, grim. "I'm coming with you."

"What?" The teen sat up, startled. "But, Edgar man, you love this city! Look, once I'm gone it'll all blow over in a week an' they won't remember you even existed. All you have to do is lay low, alright? Wait it out. They got the collective attention span of a retarded rodent anyways."

"I'm coming _with_ you, Jimmy."

The teen pressed his palm against his forehead, dragging at the lines of stress. "Look, I'm tired of fuckin' up your unlife, alright? You've already done way too much for me. I'll be fine. You're always talkin' about how much you love the city an' shit, an' I can't take _that_ away from you, too. It's the last thing you got."

Edgar grabbed his hand and pulled it down between them. In a snapshot second, everything was clear.

"Look at me."

Jimmy looked up.

"I don't give a damn about the city, okay? I haven't given up anything I wasn't willing to give up, and I don't regret any of this. You're not asking? That's alright. I'm going whether you like it or not. Besides," he added, "it wouldn't be any fun around here without you."

Jimmy looked at him, trying to scowl but not having much success. A grin broke though, and he sighed. "…Just when I think I got you pinned…"

Edgar grinned. "—You realize what a good-for-nothing pessimist you are."

-0-

They had a bag each, with spare clothes and Jimmy's host of weapons wrapped up inside. As they packed, he had told Edgar about how he used to make his own and how he always thought that's what he'd be doing for the rest of his life, until Johnny came along. Now they crept through the hidden streets of Hades, listening out for the tell-tale signs of rioting. They had been moving west for a while now, measuring their progress in blocks rather than uncountable minutes. The edge of the inhabited city was only a few streets ahead, and after that the pavement ran on into a place where all the roads were named _Lethe_ and all the windows were empty but for dust.

Between here and there lay the hulking mass of the Lows.

Edgar reached forward and grabbed his friend's shoulder, nodding towards the great gray monolith. "I need to say goodbye. You coming?"

Jimmy looked a little apprehensive. "I dunno. I don't really get him like you do. Feel kinda left out."

"Nonsense, you just need to put some effort in."

They made their way up to the doors, ducked inside and entered the maze; everything remained as it had been, from the fizzling fluorescent lights to the endless turns. This time, though, the labyrinth seemed to open up in front of them, twists and turns as obvious as a well marked street, drawing them deep into the center. Edgar eyed the well-lit fork in the road as they passed, seeing for the first time that its deceptively safe path led to nowhere, dead-ending somewhere almost out of sight.

They walked on.

The Help Desk sign came into view with one last turn, its little taped up print-out reading "All questions welcome, few answers". Edgar smiled at that.

"Hello? Bondye?"

A cowboy hat appeared over a stack of paper behind the circular desk, followed by a blinking brown face.

"I wasn' sleeping, if that's what you think."

"Um, sure." Edgar decided not to point out the ink smudge on Bondye's cheek, which looked to be "REQUEST" imprinted backwards.

"What can I do for you two today?" the Haitian asked, stretching discreetly. "_Tout kesyon yo byen akeyi_—All questions welcome."

Edgar shook his head. "No questions today, I'm afraid. As a matter of fact, I came to say goodbye—we're skipping town, you might say."

"People 'round here decided they didn't like my face much," Jimmy added, walking past the older men to examine the wall of weapons behind them.

Bondye smiled secretly at the younger man's back, as if he knew something that Jimmy had yet to find out—or perhaps he was just pleased to hear the boy speaking. Either way, a wall of sharp objects was beckoning for Jimmy's attention, leaving Edgar and the strange man alone for all intents and purposes.

"You're leaving, then," Bondye said, turning back to him, "with no intent to return. Isn't this your city, _Msye_ Vargas? Isn't this the first place you felt at home in a long time?"

_Since my mother died,_ the lighter man filled in silently. Aloud: "You know, I had a dream about you."

The Haitian's eyes glittered. "Oh ho?"

"You asked me if a home was a house. I didn't really get it at the time, but I think now I understand where that was pointing me. See—you don't mind listening do you? It helps to talk about things, I'm finding out lately."

"Of course not," Bondye replied, graciously, pulling out a spare seat and brushing off its layer of forms. "I did ask after all."

"Well, then," Edgar said, taking a seat. "The point sort of hit me just today, actually. See, I always talk about Hell like it's this wonderful exciting place—but, honestly, it freaked me out when I first got here. I don't remember being _nearly_ this happy the first couple —er, let's call them months. People annoyed me and the only reason I stuck around was that Heaven was duller than dirt. And a few months ago, I went through a spell where every little thing about this town pissed me off. I didn't get it; is the city great or isn't it? I couldn't figure out what the difference was."

"And your answer?"

Edgar looked down at his hands. "Every time I was depressed, I was alone. Hell sucked when I was here by myself—even the bit recently when everything pissed me off, that was when I decided not to talk to Jimmy anymore. He's what makes the afterlife fun, you know? Otherwise it's just… existing."

"_Lakay se yon moun_," the Haitian smiled, "home is a person."

"Yes! That's it exactly."

Bondye laughed, the sound deep and reverberating. "So simple, _wi_? And that, that's why you're going with him?"

"Well… yes." Edgar looked back to where him companion was examining the edge on a machete, which he now knew was the interest of a craftsman rather than sheer morbidity. "I, ah, really care about him too. I couldn't let him go running off into terra incognita without someone to watch his back. He says he can take care of himself—" Edgar looked back again, fondly, "—but he'd end up in a death match with Cerberus if I wasn't there to drag him away."

_Not to mention all the other things that one man just can't face alone, idiotic teenager or not._

"So then. What have you learned, here in the underworld?"

Edgar looked up, surprised. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Your lesson," Bondye repeated, whipping out an apple with all the seamless grace of a magician. "I told you that _everyone_ in Hell comes here for a reason. Everything is lessons, _Msye_ Vargas. You came to Hell for a reason, to learn something you never figured out in life. What was it?"

Edgar sat back and considered that. He'd taught a lesson or two, had a few epiphanies—but what had he taken away from all this, really? Underneath everything else, the misadventures and the drama and the comedy, what had been waiting for him to uncover it? He wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he had nothing left to learn, not any more. Human reason can only take you so far, and then...

He looked up. He smiled.

"'Though I have prophetic powers'," he recited, "'and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love- I am nothing'."

"_Disipl_ Paul!" the darker man laughed, slapping his hands together delightedly. "A very good choice, _Msye_ Vargas. A very good choice indeed."

Edgar smiled, turning the quotation back over in his head. He might have just as easily said that no man is an island, after all. But somehow, _Corinthians_ seemed more fitting.

"Now," Bondye said, "you and your friend go on your way, into the great Unknown for a second time. I've heard it's easier when you can go in company—but then, that's the one thing I've never been able to test for myself. I would wish you all luck in _Peyi a Konnen_, the lands which exist beyond the edge of the world. If it's not too much to say… you are one of the things that gives me hope for mankind."

Edgar looked away, unexpectedly humbled. "Thanks, Bondye. Do you… know what's out there? Where we're headed?"

The Haitian winked, leaning back in his chair—somewhere in the middle of all that, he'd whittled his apple away to a core. "Now, 'headed' implies a destination. And a destination implies and end. And when you think about it, nothing really ends, does it?"

"Always riddles," Edgar sighed. "Where are those answers now?"

"_Pa genyen_!" the mysterious man laughed, and the apple disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. "There aren't any!"

Edgar smiled despite himself and stood, tucked the chair back in. He called Jimmy from where the younger man was testing one blade's edge, maded sure he didn't try to pocket it on the way out. The chapter was closing behind them, just as surely as a certain man named Cory was going to be very disappointed in the coming days. Edgar grinned again, and turned back to his mystifying friend.

"Thanks for all the help," he said, offering an empty hand. "I hope you get out of Hell soon."

Bondye shook the proffered hand, the secret smile returning. "You are always welcome, but this is just my local office. I stick around here for people like you, _Msye_ Vargas."

"Hey," Jimmy called from the exit, "are we going or what? I'm about ready to blow this popsicle stand."

The older man turned around to frown at him him. "Just hold on, okay? I'm trying to—"

He looked back.

He was alone.

No Bondye.

Not even a hat.

"Jimmy, _please_ tell me you saw that," he hissed, dashing towards the exit. "He was just here! I saw him! Where'd he _go_?"

The teen shrugged. "Hell if I know. C'mon, let's hit the road already."

Edgar looked helplessly back at the Help Desk, searching the white stacks of paperwork for brown skin. The enclave sat empty, as if it had never been manned, and spare papers fluttered across the gray tile like little ghosts.

"I can't _believe _that," he muttered, as they made their way back into the labyrinth. "Just when I had this place figured out…"

Jimmy slapped his back, grinning. "—you figure out you don't know shit. Yeah. Welcome to the club."

They walked in silence for a while, tracing the maze's contours back as easily as the lines of their palms. They passed the place where the rat people lay hibernating, passed the fork in the road, winding back towards the opening where they had secured that first piece of string.

"Hey Jimmy," the older man spoke up, at last. "Do you think you learned a lesson from all of this?"

"A lesson?" The exile gave him a funny look. "Well. Figure I did learn a thing or two, all in all."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. For one thing," he shrugged, "maybe life isn't fair, but it's got a funny way of working itself out in the end."

Edgar looked down at the bag in his hand, stuffed with his four outfits and three of Jimmy's knives. Maybe everybody paid for the things they did in different ways, and maybe the Catholics of his childhood had been right when they taught little Edgar that anyone can be saved—anyone can be absolved. He didn't know. But he did know—he was pretty sure at least—that there were three things everyone got, one way or another. And he was no exception.

Outside the sky was white, and the road stretched on into the distance. He looked ahead at the crossroad where a sign post stood, whose northern arrow read "Lethe", and whose Western arrow read "Lethe" also.

Jimmy took his hand and grinned, a promise and a confession all in one. There was no point in thanks, now—no point in apologies. _Peyi a Konnen_ awaited.

It was time for them to go.

-0-

Somewhere in the universe, you could hear a pocket full of change jingling.

Following it back through the nebulae, through bright planets and dark curves of empty space, through constellations of philosophy and the strange angles of Imaginary Realities, you might find yourself in a corner of creation, a little bistro at the end of the universe. The sign at the door says "Now seating all", and the hostess smiles at you as if she knows you well and she's glad to see you back again. There is a table in the back, a private little spot where the light is dimmer and the tabletop is worn to smoothness.

A dark skinned man waits on the left side of the booth, looking over the menu with the eye of someone who knows each line by heart but never tires of the reading. He smiles to himself, because he is patient.

The jingling comes from the pocket of a young, lawyerly gentleman. He strides across the room, sidestepping tables and patrons who seem to fade in and out. He scowls, because he is not patient and now he's late too.

"_Bondye_," the lawyerly gentleman acknowledges.

"_Dyab_," the Haitian greets him in kind.

The light man slides into the waiting booth. The dark man nods indulgently.

"I know I'm late," the newcomer sighs. "There was this tour bus full of politicians that went over the edge of the Grand Canyon, and we had some trouble making room for all of them on such little notice. I'm not omnipotent, unlike some people."

"And if you _were_," the first replies, "you'd understand that it's a bit more complicated than that."

"See, now you're just rubbing my face in it."

Bondye smiles and catches the waitress's eye, watching as she rushes off to fix their usuals. They know him here. Of course, they know him _everywhere_, but it's nice to be known on a personal level from time to time.

"So, about our bet…" Bondye starts, turning back to his companion. "I believe I win once more."

"Yes, fine fine. I admit, I underestimated your man." Dyab pauses. "He's still a fool, though."

"Fools make fine heroes," the darker one remarks. "Smart men have a tendency to think with their synapses, rather than their minds."

Dyab grunts. There is a wavering around him, a fading at the outlines, not so much a transforming as a revealing. Perhaps to you, there would be a hint of curling horns, or aged feathers just behind the shoulders. Perhaps there would only be a tired creature who has spent far too long locked in endless arguments. Either way, you would not be wrong.

"I don't see why you still insist on these bets," Bondye muses, "when you know I never lose."

"I was _this_ close with Job, I tell you," Dyab insists for the thousandth time. "_This_ close. One of these millennia, I'm going to prove you wrong."

"No you're not," Bondye says, with the sort of gentle amusement that comes from absolute confidence.

Dyab looks irked. "You made a mistake with humanity, just mark my words. One of these days you'll see I had the right of it."

A companionable silence settles over the table, and Dyab grudgingly admits to himself that he does look forward to these meetings, and he'd certainly rather be here than back at headquarters—perhaps ruling in Hell is better than serving in Heaven, but it's a lot more headaches and even _more_ paperwork still. And if anyone in the universe would understand that, it's Bondye.

There was really only one thing Bondye never understood.

The darker one is smiling, still, ineffable and silent. There is a fading at his edges as well, but then, that's always been there. Perhaps on examining him closely, you might find that your mind turns back to visions of marionettes you saw in childhood, or holographic cards whose images change with the angle, or to a puzzle box with infinite dimensions tucked carefully inside. Or perhaps you would see only a mysterious Haitian. None of these are wrong.

Many things are true. Bondye is just another name, another face, for something nameless and faceless. Just like those holographic cards, it changes shape depending on how you look at it; unlike them, it changes shape depending on how it looks at you. Even Dyab himself doesn't fully understand, though he's been here from the beginning, seen all the mysteries first hand.

"Where do you think they'll end up?" Dyab, the age old Adversary, asks at last.

"Oh," Bondye answers, "back at the beginning, I expect. That's usually how things end, wouldn't you say?"

"If you want to get technical," Dyab scowls. The expression softens after a moment. "I suppose they'll be happy, wherever they wind up."

A bottle of wine sits between them, surprised to find itself suddenly on a table in a corner of a restaurant at the edge of the universe. Bondye pours them both a glass, the ineffable smile drawing all things into its gravitation.

"A toast," the mysterious one suggests, "to old beginnings and new endings. May you never know what's coming next."

"Quite," the cynical one replies.

In the dim corner of a restaurant at the edge of the universe, God and Satan clink glasses—and somewhere in the wide expanse of the creation, a sun bursts into life.

END


	21. This shit is just for fun

**Eternity in a Pickle Jar**

BONUS BITS

Contents:

1. Concerning God (And Why It Is Not Just an Omnipotent Dumpster Baby on a Chair.)

2. Concerning the Artists of Mindless Self Indulgence

3. Concerning Illustrations of a Mediocre But Interesting Variety

4. Concerning Dante Alighieri

5. Concerning General Author's Notes (Including a Catalogue of Mmy/Edgar Fics)

1. What's up with God and stuff?

Okay, so first off you have to understand that I'm a really philosophical person, and my personal philosophy is that human beings as a rule don't understand shit. Now, the Judeo-Christian (Islamic too) God is generally conceived to be omniscient, omnipresent, and all powerful. I think it's pretty clear that Mr. Vasquez was drawing from a semi-Christian God is formless and pretty much incomprehensible. As Edgar said, "He's kind of like this hyper-dimensional being from a sci-fi novel." If you've ever read _Animorphs_, think of the Ellimist. It seems logical to me that when we see something we can't comprehend, we sort of make a caricature based on the bits that was _do_ understand. Seven Blind Mice style.

Before we go on, let me illustrate the difference between Johnny C. and my Edgar Vargas.

Johnny pretty much thinks that life sucks. Period. He expects everyone to be a useless, corrupt, hypocritical jackass. In fact, we're given only three examples of possibly decent people in his life: one he kills (Edgar), one he traumatizes (Squee), and one he _attempts _to kill. Let it suffice to say that his world view is about as bleak as T_he Invisible Man_.

About Edgar, in canon, we know nothing except a) he's incredibly levelheaded in the face of Death incarnate, and b) he's not a mindless jerk like the rest of the population. I have chosen to make him a Nice Guy, with a buried steel streak and a quick mind. I figured that in comic books, people usually fit their stereotypes- thus, glasses equal smart. So I've got a smart, fast, nice guy, who is religious and follows Johnny's twisted logic very well. Do you sort of see where I'm going?

No? Yes?

My Edgar is a philosopher, although he doesn't quite know it. Thus, he views the world in shades of gray, and he's willing to admit his perceptions aren't perfect. He also believes that people are fundamentally good (he's a Humanist), and that life is fair one way or another. So whereas Johnny sees life through a lens of pessimism, Edgar sees the world through a lens of faith.

Now back to God. Johnny is the blind mouse that goes out and finds a useless sack of semi-corporeal flesh, and never bothers to consider that his perception might be limited. Life sucks. Thus, in Johnny's mind, God must suck too. Now, Edgar sees the same dissapointing sight when he's trouncing around heaven for two reasons. One: mainly, God just doesn't want him to catch on yet. Two, but less important: he's still locked somewhat into the same frame of mind he died in, which was a momentary break in the depression he'd been suffering for months.

Damn this is getting long. Anyways, Edgar's first impression of the Man Upstairs is partially a ruse to throw him off and partially a result of his own subconscious doubts. When he encounters Bondye (which is my own linguistic joke), he's in a much better frame of mind. He's also at the stage in his journey where he needs a sort of Guide- a Virgil to his Dante, if you will. So Bondye shows up as the archetypal Wise Man. Usually you find those on a mountain top, but the labyrinth is such a fantastic symbol for working out your own thoughts... and hey, I wasn't kidding when I said that Labyrinths are supposed to help you find God.

Basically, this version of the Supreme Deity is the elephant from the Seven Blind Mice, if the elephant was also making bets about you behind your back and trying to confuse you as you put the pieces together.

It's funny. I really didn't think it was this complicated until I tried to explain it. Whoops.

2. MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE

-is the name of my favorite band. I have like, way too many references to count in here. If you ever read this story again (which I recommend, if you're bored, because I'm always going back and cleaning things up), you might want to keep an eye out for song titles. Trust me. It's fun. You can make it like a drinking game or something.

Also, I've got this weird little project that started out as a total joke. But you know how that goes. Anyways, I've made up a list of MSI songs which narrate Jimmy's life and death almost perfectly. You'll have to use youtube, but it goes something like this:

Uncle- (He got picked on as a kid, yeah?)  
Preteen Violence- (particularly the line about doing X rated things in school hallways)  
Straight to Video- (hit the road)  
Clarissa- (some bitch, I imagine she reinforced his bad opinion of women)  
Lights Out- (kid's a real delinquent)  
Backmask (Kill Your Self) - (he's also a stupid emo teenager)  
Last Time I Tried to Rock Your World - (Johnny was not at all impressed)  
Brooklyn Hype pt 1 - (Hell. I know I hit the bottom because all my friends are in it)  
Faggot - (and here comes Edgar. But really, I imagine this song is coming from Jimmy's perspective)  
Never Wanted to Dance - (Falling in looooove.)  
Stupid Sadistic and Suicidal (3S) -`(insert confessions here)  
Prove Me Wrong - (I think this one speaks for itself)  
Tight - (CHAPTER 19)  
Greatest Love of All - (because every lame-ass story needs a lame-ass feel good ending.)

And I think it's sort of fun. If anybody really wants one, I can make you a download package of all but B_rooklyne Hyp_e. I'll probably replace it with _Bullshit_.

**Point two**: You may have noticed that in my _Interlude,_ I gave Jimmy a shiny new last name. Now, other people (bet you can name a couple off the top of your head) have of course given him last names before, but I thought I'd tell you the story about my choice. See, the lead singer of Mindless Self Indulgence is Jimmy Urine- James Euringer. Since MSI is my favorite band, and I've been using their music as a theme since chapter four, not to mention that Jimmy Urine reminds me of a less bratty version of _this _Jimmy, the word play came automatically.

So you've got Jimmy Eurige. Figure, little Jimmy Eurige might grow up to be his universe's Jimmy Urine, if I gave him the chance.

3. Art

Like everything else here, this is just something to entertain you if you're bored and/or really fond of this story. But I have a deviantart account, and there's some art for the story- um, I'm not the universe's best artist, but I think my style is pretty rounded and I'm not half-bad.

http:/ desdemonakakalose .deviantart .com/gallery/#JTHM

I recommend the _One Morning in Hell_ series, because besides being half-assed doodle comics, they're pretty funny to me.

Jynx did a couple illustrations too, which I think are fabulous: http:/ jynxsbox. deviantart .com/art/Desdemona-Learning-New-Habits-160619044 and http:/ jynxsbox. deviantart .com/art/Then-Why-d-We-Come-Here-175270186

4. Dante

Now, you might have noticed that I've got a _few _references to The Inferno, unless you're, like, _blind_- in which case, how are you reading this?

Unlike in Star Trek, where the alien ships have Greek names for no reason, all the references in my story are put there by the characters. In this case, mostly the Devil. My goal was never to rip off Dante, only to show that there are some overlapping universal concepts and that Satan has a sense of humor. Oh, yes, and to make it so that in this universe, Dante sort of _did_ know what was going on, even if he thought he was writing pure fiction.

The most obvious references are the street names, and Jimmy's club. I want to acknowledge that I learned the circles a little different from John Ciardi's translation, where the Seventh Circle (the violent and the bestial) was split into two rings: the violent against humanity ie: murderers and suicides, and the violent against ideas ie: sodomites and blasphemers. When I got the idea for the club's name, I thought it was a clever sort of give or take, since the Second Circle of Hell is the Lustful. It could be either or.

I went and properly studied the Ciardi translation this year, and I noticed that he did things a little differently. In his Seventh Circle, there are three "rounds" (my rings). Sodomites are in the third round, which made me sort of unhappy. But still, this isn't supposed to be about copying Dante, so it's alright.

About the street names, this is cool. I went into this project thinking that I would name all the major streets after the Greek rivers of the underworld because I'm a Latin student and that's my idea of humor. I knew that the Styx was the main river, and also the river of Hate- it flows down into Tartarus, the Greek equivalent of Hell- so Styx was going to be my main street. Acheron is another river, thus another street. The Phlegethon is a river of fire, and I thought it was a bit too graphic to fit in with this version of the afterlife, which as you've noticed is mostly in your head. Cocytus, the river of Wailing, becomes Cocytus Avenue, the fault line of the City. The last river is Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. This one is more of a lake, depending on which poet you listen too, but I thought it was a fitting name for the "forgotten" sections of the city.

JTHM leads us to believe that the city extends out potentially into infinity, which of course got me thinking about where exactly infinity leads... you can see that mirrored in chapter 11. Anyways, Lethe became the Terra Incognita of the Underworld, which Edgar and Jimmy would eventually escape through for their Second Chance.

Ready for the weird bit?

So as I went into Dante for the first time, I noticed that he had the rivers of the underworld too, and I was like "cool, awesome coincidence." I figured it was sort of like Edgar being Catholic (ish), just like Dante. Fun happenstance. Except, I get farther in, and at the end of Canto XIV, I find this passage here:

"and you shall stand by Lethe, but far hence,  
there, where the spirits go to wash themselves  
when their guilt has been removed by penitence."

Dudes. How is Dante copying me nine hundred years ago? He's got Lethe being the gateway to Redemption too, I mean... does anybody else think that's so incredibly weird?

Yes? No? Maybe so?

Well.

5. A/N

Languages! So I've got this thing for including as many cultures as I can get away with. Fun facts:

-Bondye is "God" in Haitian. I kept expecting someone to look it up and figure it out... (Likewise, Dyab is "devil")

-Phuong, in chapter 18, says this: "ông là một kẻ ngốc Nhưng là một kẻ ngốc khá đẹp trai" which translates as "He is a stupid man, but rather a handsome one" or "He's a fool, but a fool is quite handsome."

- Napoleon (who if you know cool stuff about history, you'll know might have died of _either _stomach cancer _or _poisoning. Nooobody knows~) says this in the ballroom. "Diable faisait stupide. Toujours… il va stupide. Je suis ici depuis des siècles". This translates as "The Devil is stupid. There will always be stupidity. I have been here for centuries." Please note that I'm so not a French student, so this might be off.

I think everything that Bondye says in Hatian is more or less tranlated in the text, so we're covered there.

In other news, I no longer get the impression that Edgar is wearing a dress anymore. I'm not sure when it stopped, but it doesn't happen any more. ...I miss it.

My last order of business is recommendations. There are a few other Mmy/Edgar fanfictions out there, and I thought I ought to showcase them, since this chapter is just for fun anyways.

"Butterfly", by Crow Sensei

"Unnapreciated," by Kurumi

"Sick" and "Pay for It," by me

"Mad House," by Rebelionmuda

"Swarm", by Jynx'sbox

If you write one or you've written one that I don't know about, please tell me and I'll slap your name up there too. And that about wraps this up. If there was anything that you'd been wondering about as the story went on, just ask me about it in a review and I will HOOK YOU UP WITH SOME KNOWLEDGE. Yeah. Everybody who's been through here in the last couple years, I just want to thank all of y'all for real. It's been the best waste of my time ever. I know we're a small little group of people, but that makes us cooler, right?

Much love,

Dezzy


End file.
